■  f  . 


..ri 


V,-^''.  •  V 


ON  READING  NIETZSCHE 


NOTABLE  WORKS  OF 
EMILE  FAGUET 


Le  Seizieme  siecle 

Le  Liberalisme 

Le  Socialisme  en  1907 

Le  Pacifisme 

Pour  qu'on  use  Platon 


ON  READING 
NIETZSCHE 


BY 


EMILE  FAGUET 

Member  of  the  Academic  Fran^aise 


TRANSLATED   BY 

GEORGE  RAFFALOVICH 


FERIOK 
ASEav 
ENTE5  l! 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

1918 


Copyright,  1918,  bt 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 


Published  April,  1918 


STACK 
ANiiEX 

P. 


FOREWORD. 

Nietzsche  found  in  Emile  Fagiiet  one  of  his  most 
qualified  critics.  It  takes  a  French  critic  to  dis- 
play the  wares  of  even  the  clearest  of  Teutonic 
philosophers.  Nietzsche  was  a  clear,  honest  (even 
in  his  errors),  merciless  thinker.  Emile  Faguet, 
without  Nietzsche's  depth  of  creative  and  imagin- 
ative power,  was  nevertheless  as  clear  and  honest 
a  thinker  and,  to  be  sure,  as  merciless.  The  catholic 
taste  of  tlie  French,  their  disregard  of  shams  and 
that  chivalrous  instinct  which  prompts  them,  while 
jealously  preserving  their  individuality  as  a  nation, 
to  recognize  the  good  points  in  those  strange,  neigh- 
bouring yet  foreign,  nations  whom  they  know  they 
cannot  appreciate  and  whom  as  a  rule  they  do  not 
wish  to  appreciate,  are  all  eminently  shown  in  this 
and  in  the  other  works  of  Faguet. 

Would  the  late  "  Immortal "  rewrite  his  conclu- 
sion, one  wonders,  if  he  were  alive  to  witness  the 
apogee  of  the  war  which  he  saw,  but  at  its  darkest 
period,  for  France?  From  what  I  knew  of  him,  I 
doubt  it.  Emile  Faguet  was  replete  with  that  com- 
mon-sense which  made  France  the  intellectual  light 
of  the  educated  classes  all  over  the  world.  He 
would  not  have  accepted  the  superficial  idea  which 
caused  many  to  see  in  Nietzsche  the  insi)irer  of  the 
German  leaders  and  in  his  works  the  Bible  of  the 


FOREWOEiD 

German  herds.  German  thinkers  never  quite  knew 
what  to  make  out  of  Nietzsche.  Those  who  charge 
the  author  of  Zarathustra  with  causing  the  war, 
acknowledge  thereby  that  they  have  not  read  or 
have  not  understood  him.  Nietzsche  was  a  symp- 
tom, not  a  cause.  Moreover,  Teutonic  romanticism 
and  lack  of  psychological  acumen  were  his  two  chief 
bogeys.  Nietzsche,  with  that  Greek  ideal  ever  be- 
fore his  dreamer's  eyes,  had  no  patience  with  Ktil- 
tur.  To  card-index  alleged  scientific  facts  which 
lead  nowhere  but  to  a  thirst  for  more  "  facts  " — 
was  that  a  Greek  ideal?  To  clog  the  brains  of  a 
few  men  with  unassimilated  knowledge,  and  then 
inspire  them  to  force  it  down  the  throat  of  the 
rest  of  mankind,  that  is  Kultur  —  but  was  it  Greek 
pre-Socratic  culture?  And  where  is  the  art,  the 
beauty  and  the  common-sense  in  the  soul  of  Ger- 
man mental  expansionists  ? 

Nietzsche  was  and  remains  beyond  the  ken  of 
most  Germans,  even  though  a  hasty  glance  at  his 
works  may  have  led  a  few  extreme  German  Kul- 
turists  to  fancy  they  had  in  him  an  apologist  for 
their  ravings.  Through  his  French  critic  he  may 
perhaps  appear  clearer  than  he  was  in  reality.  If 
the  Greeks'  saying  "  fieya  (3i(3Xtov  [icya  KaKov"  (a 
great  book  is  a  great  evil)  applies  to  Nietzsche,  one 
must  admit  that  Faguet  deprives  his  work  of  much 
of  the  danger  thereof,  for  only  the  unknown  dan- 
gers find  us  unarmed.  If  there  be  poison  in  Nie- 
tzsche's writings,  Faguet  serves  the  antidote  along 
with  it  as  it  were,  in  the  course  of  his  running,  some- 
times rambling,  commentary.  Nietzsche's  notions 
are  sifted;  the  essentials  are  all  here  and  the  con- 


FOREWORD 

tribution  he  brought  to  human  thought  is  duly  ac- 
knowledged. That  contribution  was  real  and  will 
remain,  long  after  the  last  trace  of  the  present  war 
has  been  eradicated  by  the  work  of  human  patience. 

I  have  followed  the  French  original  as  closely  as 
the  form  of  the  Latin  periods  of  Faguet  allowed. 
A  translator  should  try  to  preserve  the  flavour  of  the 
author's  work,  especially  when  such  flavour  is  as 
delicate  as  that  used  by  Faguet.  As  to  the  passages 
quoted  from  Nietzsche.  I  made  my  own  version,  ex- 
ception made  for  those  longer  passages  from  Thus 
Spake  Zaratliustra  and  Beyond  Good  and  Evil 
which  I  took  from  the  translation  in  Messrs.  Boni 
and  Liveright's  IModem  Library.  For  those  who 
wish  to  enjoy  the  "  dangerous  pleasure  "  of  reading 
him  and  deciding  for  themselves,  I  should  add  that 
the  only  complete  edition  of  Nietzsche's  works  in 
English  which  one  may  recommend  is  that  under- 
taken by  Dr.  Oscar  Levy,  and  published  in  this 
country  by  the  Macmillan  Co.  Those  in  the  Mod- 
em Library  are  published  by  arrangement  between 
these  two  firms.  A  list  of  works  will  be  found  in 
an  Appendix  to  this  volume. 

G.  R. 

North  Cohasset,  December,  1917. 


CONTENTS 

chapter  page 

Foreword 4 

I    Nietzsche  Seeks  Himself i 

II    Preaching  His  Faitu 2^ 

HI    Criticising   the    Obstacles:    First    Ob- 
stacles        33 

IV    Criticising  the  Obstacles:     Society     .     41 

V    Criticising  the  Obstacles:    Religion     ,     50 

VI    Criticising  the  Obstacles:     Science  and 

Rationalism 73 

\\\  Criticising  the  Obstacles:  Morality    .     87 

VIII  The  Theory 126 

IX  Developing  the  Theory 165 

X  Distant  Perspectives  of  the  Doctrine    .  206 

XI    Digression  :    Literary    Ideas    of    Nietz- 
sche       240 

XII    Conclusion 267 


ON  READING 
NIETZSCHE 

CHAPTER  I. 

NIETZSCHE  SEEKS  HIMSELF. 

Often,  if  not  always,  while  expressing  his  ideas,  a 
philosopher  merely  analyzes  his  own  character. 
Often,  if  not  always,  the  philosopher's  starting  point 
is  his  own  feelings.  Then,  gifted  with  the  faculty 
of  putting  his  feelings  into  thoughts,  because  he  is  a 
philosopher,  he  turns  his  feelings  into  ideas.  Then, 
gifted  with  the  synthetic  faculty,  he  gathers  all  his 
ideas,  which  are  but  transformed  feelings,  into  one 
general  idea.  Then  perhaps,  he  looks  around,  per- 
ceives everything  which,  in  the  domain  of  ideas, 
thwarts  and  hampers  his  own  general  idea  and 
criticizes  it.  His  criticism  is  minute  because  he  is  a 
dialectician.  It  is  bitter  and  bold  because  his  gen- 
eral idea  is  at  bottom  nothing  but  a  personal  feeling 
to  which  he  clings  and  even  a  passion  which  domi- 
nates him.  Then,  in  the  course  of  his  critical  oper- 
ation, he  discovers  ideas  which  confirm  his  general 
thought  and  he  welcomes  them.  His  general 
thought  becomes  a  system.  Again,  because  he  is 
honest,   ideas   come   to   him    which   contradict   his 

z 


2  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

system.  He  does  not  dismiss  them,  because  he  loves 
ideas  for  their  own  sake  but  he  throws  them  on  the 
margin  of  his  intellect,  or  at  least  he  does  his  best 
more  or  less  to  bring  them  into  his  own  system. 
Finally,  he  reaches  the  conception  —  which  most  of 
the  time,  he  cannot  realize  nor  even  embrace  —  of 
a  system  which  would  exceed  his  own  and  could  in- 
clude in  its  greater  breadth  all  the  ideas  that  have 
come  to  him,  those  that  were  hostile  and  those  that 
were  dear  to  him.  He  conceives  a  system  beyond 
his  own  system,  a  general  idea  beyond  his  own  gen- 
eral idea.  This  system  he  sketches.  Of  this  idea 
he  gets  a  glimpse.  As  a  rule,  especially  if  he  dies 
young,  he  remains  on  the  threshold  of  this  Promised 
Land,  which  he  leaves  to  others. 

Such,  it  seems  to  me,  was  the  progress  of  Fried- 
rich  Nietzsche.  At  any  rate,  it  shall  be  mine  as  I 
follow  his  steps  and  attempt  to  recognize  them. 
Such  is  the  plan  I  shall  follow  in  reading  Nietzsche 
with  a  certain  method.  It  is  a  good  or  a  bad  one. 
I  need  a  method  to  read  him  in  a  well-connected  way 
after  having  read  him  so  often,  as  he  wrote  —  that 
is,  at  random,  according  to  the  day  and  the  hour. 

As  much  as  one  can  surmise  from  what  is  known 
of  him  and  what  he  said  of  himself,  Nietzsche 
was  honest,  proud  and  aggressive.  He  had  many 
other  characteristics  but  one  must  confine  one's  self 
within  the  essentials  in  order  to  see  clearly  and 
to  avoid  the  risk  of  disentangling  nothing  through 
wishing  to  perceive  everything. 

He  was  honest,  hated  hypocrisy  and  that  approx- 
imative conscience  which  is  nothing  but  a  kind  of 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS   HIMSELF  3 

hypocrisy.  He  wished  to  see  with  a  clear  sight, 
absohitely  and  right  down  to  their  depths,  others 
and  himself,  ideas  and  systems.  Later  he  scoffed 
mercilessly  at  "  that  people,"  his  own  "  which 
loves  to  be  fuddled  and  makes  a  virtue  of  the  lack 
of  clearness."  He  exclaimed  lyrically,  thinking 
mostly  of  himself:  "But  at  last  we  are  getting 
clear;  we  have  become  clear!"  This  intellectual 
honest}',  which  is  after  all  but  a  form  of  moral 
honesty,  was  with  him  uncompromising.  It  was 
that  which  later  compelled  him  ever  to  lift  the  veils, 
ever  to  tear  out  the  masks,  ever  to  inquire  "  what 
else  lies  under  this  idea,  what  else  is  there  beyond 
this  first  principle;  what  unacknowledged  feeling, 
what  unavowed  tendency,  which  perhaps  cannot  be 
acknowledged?  "  It  was  that  which  compelled  him 
to  think,  say  and  write  down  things  which  were 
contradictory  and  which  contradicted  his  general 
thought,  if  they  seemed  true  to  him  at  the  time  he 
was  conceiving  them.  It  was  that  which  gave  to  all 
he  wrote  the  air  of  being  a  confession,  a  haughty 
one  to  be  sure,  but  yet  a  public  confession. 

He  was  proud  to  the  utmost.  He  was  thoroughly 
convinced  of  the  superiority  of  his  intellect.  He 
was  haunted  by  the  feeling,  often  enough  a  correct 
one,  that  all  that  he  was  thinking  was  being  thought 
out  for  the  first  time.  He  was  ever  excited  by 
the  well-known  itching  which  consists  in  always 
suspecting  that  what  the  majority  of  people  think 
is  stupid,  that  one  can  hardly  err  by  being  paradox- 
ical and  that  paradox,  being  at  least  a  flight  out  of 
the  realm  of  stupidity,  is  a  step  towards  truth. 


4  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

His  insatiable  thirst  for  independence  proceeded 
from  his  pride.  He  could  bear  no  yoke,  either  from 
men,  from  circumstances  or  even  from  habits. 
Very  significant  was  his  remark  on  short  habits, 
"  My  nature  is  altogether  organized  for  short  habits, 
even  in  the  needs  of  physical  health,  and  generally, 
as  far  as  I  can  see,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest. 
I  always  fancy  that  such  and  such  a  thing  will  sat- 
isfy me  permanently.  .  .  .  One  day,  and  it  is  gone. 
The  short  habit  has  had  its  time.  .  .  .  Already  some- 
thing new  knocks  and  clamors  at  my  door.  .  .  . 
It  is  thus  with  me,  whether  in  dishes,  in  ideas,  men, 
towns,  poetry,  music,  theories,  arrangements  for 
the  day,  or  in  my  taste  in  wise  men.  .  .  .  On  the 
other  hand,  I  hate  lasting  habits.  They  make  me 
think  of  a  tyrant,  who  would  rule  over  me.  I  be- 
gin to  fancy  that  the  atmosphere  of  my  life  has 
darkened  as  soon  as  events  shape  themselves  in  such 
a  way  that  lasting  habits  seem  as  if  they  would 
inevitably  follow.  In  the  depths  of  my  soul,  I  feel 
even  grateful  for  my  physical  misery  and  my  sick- 
ness since  they  provide  me  with  a  hundred  means  of 
escape  through  which  I  can  steal  away  from  lasting 
habits." 

Finally,  out  of  his  honesty  and  pride  combined, 
there  was  born  in  Nietzsche  a  sane  daring,  a  frank 
valor,  a  dauntlessness  of  opinion  that  made  him 
quarrelsome,  aggressive,  pugnacious,  an  arrant  con- 
tradictor, ever  fighting  and  prone  to  exaggeration. 
He  was  not  unlike  a  man  that  tells  you  before  you 
speak :  "  You  are  wrong."  And  after  you  have 
spoken :     "  I  knew  it  but  now  I  am  assured  of  it." 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS    HIMSELF  5 

And  who  was  truly  sure  of  it  before  as  much  as 
after.  He  was  not  unlike  the  man  of  whom  wc 
say :  "  He  is  coming  up  the  stairs ;  he  is  getting 
ready  to  contradict  me."  He  was  not  unlike  the 
man  of  whom  we  say :  "  I  am  going  to  take  up  the 
opposite  of  my  opinion  before  him  because  he  speaks 
well  and  I  like  to  hear  him  express  my  own  views." 
.  .  .  All  the  exaggerations  of  Nietzsche  come  from 
there.  There  was  in  him  much  of  the  temperament 
of  a  Joseph  de  Maistre. 

—  Thus  had  nature  made  him.  Since  he  was 
bom  unwittingly  a  German,  his  first  school  was  that 
of  romanticism,  of  pessimism  and  of  Wagner  and 
until  he  gained  full  conscience  of  himself,  he  wor- 
shipped them.  Goethe,  by  those  sides  of  his  nature 
which  are  accessible  to  the  young  and  to  the  crowd, 
Schopenhauer  and  Wagner  were  his  first  teachers 
and  idols.  If  not  saturated,  at  least  he  was  im- 
pregnated with  German  romanticism,  so  different 
from  our  own  —  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  either  bet- 
ter or  worse  —  which  is  made  up  especially  of  sen- 
sibility and  emotion,  of  gemiithltchkeit,^  of  dreamy, 
tender  and  pitying  melancholy  and  in  which  feeling 
greatly  overpowers  imagination. 

He  was  more  deeply  penetrated  with  pessimism. 
That  is  a  natural  result  of  that  long  practiced  and 
smouldering  romanticism.  That  feeling  of  the  in- 
curable misery  of  all  things  leads  one  either  to  wish 

^  This  and  the  other  italicized  words  throughout  the  vol- 
ume were  underlined  by  Nietzsche  in  the  manuscripts  of 
his  works  with  the  exception  of  a  few  cases  when  Faguet 
wished   to  call   especial   attention  to  one  of   his   subject's 
main  points,  usually  a  paradox.  —  (Translator's  Note.) 


6  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

or  to  insist  that  they  should  cease  to  be,  or  to  destroy 
them,  as  it  were,  within  one's  self  so  as  to  avoid 
feeling  them,  and  to  take  refuge  in  an  indifiference 
which  is  analogous  to  the  Nothingness  or  is  at  least 
a  near-approach  to  Non-Being. 

He  was  enthusiastic,  for  a  long  period,  over  the 
music  of  Wagner,  which  throws  one  into  a  kind  of 
ecstatic  state,  which  is  vital  and  depicts  life,  but 
which  paints  it  in  its  nervous,  enervated,  tired 
phases  and  especially  in  its  longing  for  rest. 

In  short,  he  caught  the  romantic  diathesis.  He 
caught  it  complete,  without  missing  any  symptom 
thereof.  A  Frenchman  cannot  very  well  conceive 
this  diathesis.  French  romanticism  was  French. 
The  further  away  one  examines  it,  the  better  one 
sees  it  and  the  more  one  is  persuaded  of  this  truth. 
It  was  clear,  orderly,  quick  and  passionate.  Most 
of  its  great  representatives  threw  themselves  into 
action.  It  was  optimistic  with  its  two  great  leaders 
and  pessimistic  with  the  others  only  by  fits  and 
starts.  No  great  philosopher  was  found  to  express 
the  little  pessimism  it  contained.  Neither  Comte 
nor  Renan,  nor  Taine  even  were  pessimists.  Fi- 
nally, it  had  no  special  musician,  apart  perhaps 
from  one.  French  romantic  music  proper  does  not 
exist.  Therefore  if  we  take  French  romanticism 
as  the  type  of  romanticism,  we  must  give  the  Ger- 
man romanticism  another  name.  And  if  we  take 
German  romanticism  as  the  type  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century  romanticism  we  must  find  another  name 
for  French  romanticism.  This  I  would  feel  in- 
clined to  do. 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS   HIMSELF  7 

We  have  in  France,  no  idea  of  what  a  young 
German  romantic  could  have  been  about  1870.  He 
was  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  by  romanticism,  satu- 
rated with  it  through  every  influence ;  he  received  it 
through  poetry,  fiction,  philosophy,  music,  conversa- 
tion and  patriotism.  He  flattered  himself  with  the 
thought  that  romanticism  was  something  essentially 
German,  a  part  of  the  national  glory  and  patrimony. 
Such  precisely  was  Friedrich  Nietzsche  a  little  be- 
fore 1870. 

It  was  his  diathesis.  It  was  not  his  temperament. 
He  shook  himself  free  from  it.  .  .  .  It  was  not 
his  temperament.  It  was  not  his  temperament,  I 
should  say.  It  was  somewhat  his  temperament  and 
M.  Fouillee  perceived  that  fact  very  well.  It  was 
somewhat  his  temperament  in  this  sense  that  he 
was  sickly,  often  sad  and  also  prone  to  exaggeration 
and  to  fall  in  love  with  anything  colossal  and  gigan- 
tic, that  he  was  a  little  disorderly  and  hardly  able  to 
bring  material  order  in  his  ideas,  that  he  was  also 
very  personal  even  in  the  bad  sense  of  the  word  and 
did  not  dislike  the  literature  that  is  a  confidence,  an 
outpouring  and  a  confession.  I  am  prepared  to 
grant  all  this.  After  all,  there  must  have  been 
something  romantic  in  his  make-up  since  he  re- 
mained relatively  romantic  for  so  long  a  period. 
Yet,  the  basis,  or  if  you  prefer  —  since  I  do  not 
quite  know  what  the  basis  was  —  some  very  consid- 
erable parts  of  his  make-up  were  very  different  and 
contradictory.  He  was  quick  of  thought,  perhaps 
even  too  quick.  He  was  fond  of  clearness.  He 
liked  order  albeit  not  altogether  wittingly.     In  his 


V^ 


8  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

pride  he  was  an  aristocrat.  Art  is  always  aristo- 
cratic of  course,  but  romantic  art  is  nevertheless 
more  popular,  appealing  as  it  does  more  to  the 
emotions  than  to  ideas  and  especially  more  than  to 
exalted  ideas.  Again,  Nietzsche  was  independent 
and  aggressive.  It  may  be  merely  circumstantial 
but  it  is  important  to  note  that,  aside  from  other 
considerations,  the  fact  that  the  whole  of  Germany 
was  soaked  in  romanticism  was  a  sufficient  reason 
for  him  to  turn  rapidly  the  other  way.  He  freed 
himself. 

■  He  freed  himself  first,  I  think,  through  France 
and  then  through  Greece,  perhaps  through  both  at 
the  same  time.  At  all  events,  since  that  does  not 
matter  much  and  we  must  take  them  in  order,  let 
us  begin  with  France.  Let  us  note,  moreover,  that 
he  was  led  to  France  and  to  Greece  by  his  great 
friend  Goethe  who  loved  one  as  much  as  the  other. 
The  influence  of  Goethe  upon  Nietzsche  cannot  be 
exaggerated.  One  cannot  be  sure  enough  of  it  to 
say  that  all  Nietzsche  is  to  be  found  in  Goethe,  but 
we  certainly  find  Goethe  at  every  turn  in  the  road 
followed  by  Nietzsche  —  at  the  chief  landmarks  of 
his  evolution.  The  Traveler  and  his  Shadow  is  one 
of  Nietzsche's  titles.  He  traveled  in  the  great 
shadow  of  Goethe,  attempting  sometimes  with  some 
success  to  "  jump  out  of  his  shadow."  In  this  case 
it  was  a  possible  feat. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  he  addressed  himself  to  France. 
He  read  Montaigne,  whose  charming  loquacity  he 
praised.  "  A  loquacity  which  springs  from  the  joy 
of  turning  the  same  subject  ever  in  a  new  fashion 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS    HIMSELF  Q 

is  what  we  find  in  Montaigne."  He  read  Pascal, 
whom  he  quotes  a  hundred  times.  He  read  La 
Rochefoucauld,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  was  his  last 
editor,  with  plentiful  commentaries.  He  read  Cor- 
neille,  whom  he  understood  thoroughly  and  whom 
we  shall  meet  again  in  his  company  in  the  course 
of  this  volume.  He  read  La  Bruyere,  Voltaire  and 
Vauvenargues.  He  read  Cham  fort,  in  whom  he 
traced  Schopenhauer.  Nietzsche  hated  Chamfort 
and,  at  the  same  time,  excused  him  for  having  be- 
longed to  the  party  of  the  Revolution.  He  found 
in  Chamfort  "  a  man  rich  in  deep  ideas  and  who 
touched  the  very  bottom  of  the  soul,  gloomy,  suffer- 
ing, fiery  and  the  most  witty  of  all  moralists."  He 
represents  him  as  "  having  remained  a  stranger  to 
the  French,"  but  where  did  Nietzsche  discover  that? 
He  read  Fontenelle,  whom  he  admired,  I  think,  too 
much,  as  a  man  whose  witty  sayings  and  paradoxes 
have  become  so  many  truths.  He  read  Stendhal,  as 
one  may  well  have  expected.  Since  he  would  go  no 
further  than  our  XVHIth  century,  he  was  bound  to 
read  Stendlial,  who  was  of  it.  He  judged  Stendhal 
to  be  "  of  all  Frenchmen  of  that  century,  perhaps, 
the  man  whose  eyes  and  ears  were  richest  in 
thoughts." 

All  this  fascinated  him  and  showed  him  where 
lay  his  true  intellectual  nature.  He  was  classical. 
Here  are  the  formulas  of  classical  art,  new  or  seem- 
ingly new  to  him,  which  gush  forth  under  his  pen. 
No  personal  literature.  "  An  author  must  become 
silent  when  his  work  begins  to  speak.  Reality, 
nothing   but   reality,  yet  not   all   that   is   reality." 


lO  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

Precisely  as  the  good  prose  writer  uses  only  words 
that  belong  to  the  language  of  conversation  but 
is  most  careful  not  to  use  all  the  vocabulary  of  that 
language  —  thus  precisely  is  a  select  style  formed  — 
in  that  way  shall  the  good  poet  of  the  future  repre- 
sent nothing  but  real  things,  neglecting  altogether 
vague  and  obsolete  objects.  In  this,  the  ancient 
poets  showed  their  strength.  Nothing  but  reality, 
yet  not  at  all  the  whole  of  it.  Rather  a  selected 
reality.  Scattered  in  the  works  of  Nietzsche,  one 
could  find  an  almost  complete  theory  of  classical 
art,  especially  of  French  classical  art.  It  is  at  least 
certain  that  clearness,  precision,  order  and  selection 
afforded  him  a  kind  of  ravishing  revelation.  He 
evidently  swore  to  himself  to  offer  a  sacrifice  to 
these  new  idols  or  rather  to  consider  as  idols  every- 
thing that  did  not  pertain  to  these  gods. 

Did  France  lead  him  to  Greece,  or  did  Greece  lead 
him  back  later  to  France  ?  The  following  quotation 
could  illustrate  either  of  the  two  contentions  or 
again  that  which  claims  that  he  studied  both  Greek 
and  French  classics  at  the  same  time.  "  When  one 
reads  Montaigne,  La  Rochefoucauld,  Fontenelle, — 
especially  his  Dialogues  of  the  Dead, —  Vauven- 
argues  and  Qiamfort,  one  is  nearer  to  antiquity  than 
with  any  group  of  six  authors  of  any  other  nation. 
Through  these  six  writers,  the  soul  of  the  last 
centuries  of  the  ancient  era  has  come  to  life  again. 
Joined  together,  they  form  an  important  link  in  the 
great  endless  chain  of  the  Renaissance.  Their 
books  rise  above  change  in  national  taste  and  those 
philosophical  shades  with  which  it  is  thought  now- 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS    HIMSELF  II 

adays  that  each  book  should  ghtter  in  order  to 
achieve  fame.  They  contain  more  true  ideas  than 
all  the  books  of  German  philosophy  together.  To 
voice  a  very  intelligible  praise,  I  should  say  that 
written  in  Greek,  their  works  zvoidd  have  been  un- 
derstood by  the  Greeks.  On  the  contrary,  how 
much  could  a  Plato  have  understood  of  the  writings 
of  our  best  German  thinkers,  say  of  Goethe  or 
Schopenhauer,  not  to  mention  the  repugnance  he 
would  have  felt  at  their  method  of  writing — I  mean 
in  what  they  have  which  is  obscure,  exaggerated 
and  sometimes  dry  and  stilted?  These  are  faults 
which  these  two  writers  show  least  of  all 
German  thinkers,  and  yet  they  show  them  overmuch  ! 
Goethe,  as  a  thinker,  has  embraced  the  clouds  more 
willingly  than  one  should  wish  he  had.  Schopen- 
hauer threaded  his  way  almost  invariably  among  the 
symbols  of  things  rather  than  among  the  things 
themselves.  On  the  contrary,  what  clearness  and 
delicate  precision  in  these  Frenchmen!  The  most 
subtle  of  the  Greeks  could  have  been  compelled  to 
approve  of  this  art.  There  is  one  thing  they  would 
even  have  admired  and  worshiped — the  French  sly- 
ness of  expression.  They  were  very  fond  of  that 
sort  of  thing  without  achieving  great  success  in  it." 

He  was  growing  away,  more  and  more,  not  only 
from  German  romanticism  but  from  Germany  it- 
self. No  doubt  he  was  beginning  to  ask  himself 
whether  there  "  were  any  German  classics."  That 
is,  whether  there  were  German  writers  whose  genius 
was  sufficiently  general  and  universal,  who  were 
sufficiently  out  of  actuality,  while  establishing  their 


12  ON   READING  NIETZSCHE 

reputation  during  their  own  lives,  who  had  suffi- 
ciently conquered  the  future  by  the  greatness  of 
their  thought  and  the  imperishable  force  of  their 
expression  to  remain,  to  grow  greater  or  at  least 
not  to  decline  fifty  years  after  their  death.  Per- 
haps he  was  beginning  to  answer  in  the  negative, 
as  he  wrote  later  in  Human,  All  too  Human. 
"  Of  the  six  great  ancestors  of  German  literature, 
five  are  now  unquestionably  growing  old  or  have 
already  grown  old.  ...  I  am  placing  Goethe  apart. 
.  .  .  But  what  can  I  say  of  the  five  others?  Even 
before  his  death,  Klopstock  was  venerably  old  and 
so  thoroughly  so  that  his  Republic  of  the  Savants, 
the  mature  work  of  his  old  age  has  never  been 
seriously  taken  by  any  one  to  this  very  day. 
Herder  had  the  misfortune  always  to  write  books 
which  were  too  new  and  yet  already  out  of  date. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  more  subtle  and  more  daring  men 
like  Lichtenberg,  the  chief  work  of  Herder  seemed 
somewhat  obsolete  from  the  day  of  its  publication. 
Wieland  who  had  abundantly  lived  and  generated 
life  was  wise  enough  to  forestall  by  death  the  de- 
cline of  his  influence.  Lessing  still  stands  to-day 
but  only  among  the  young  and  ever  younger  sav- 
ants. Schiller  has  dropped  out  the  hands  of 
the  young  men  to  fall  into  those  of  the  little  boys, 
of  all  the  little  German  boys.  It  is  one  way  of 
getting  old  for  a  book  to  fall  back  upon  less  and 
less  ripe  generations." 

The  fact  is  Nietzsche  was  more  and  more  shed- 
ding his  Germanism  and  he  felt  himself  attracted 
towards  the  lands  where  clearness  ruled  and  to- 


NIETZSCHE    SEEKS    HIMSELF  I3 

wards  the  straight-lined  horizons.  At  that  time, 
that  is  about  1870,  he  discovered  Greece.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  know  whether,  as  a  schoolboy, 
at  the  g)'mnasium,  he  had  already  some  inclination 
towards  Hellenism.  I  do  not  know  and  after  all 
the  interest  is  only  one  of  curiosity.  The  only 
education  that  counts  is  the  second  one,  that  which 
we  give  ourselves.  The  real  tastes,  the  deep  tastes, 
those  that  survive  through  life  are  formed  between 
the  twentieth  and  the  thirtieth  years.  It  was  there- 
fore about  1870,  as  he  admitted  it  most  clearly 
himself  in  his  Preface  to  the  Origins  of  Greek 
Tragedy  and  in  his  comments  on  that  work,  that 
he  felt  a  deep  taste,  a  truly  passionate  love,  a  sort 
of  devotion  for  Greece.  To  him  it  was  a  new 
light.     I  am  sure  he  must  have  said  to  himself: 

Devenere  locos  loetos  et  amoena  vireta  .  .  . 
Purior  hie  campos  oether  et  lumine  vestit 
Purpureo. 

This  was  the  period  of  Nietzsche's  great  intel- 
lectual and  even  moral  crisis.  The  whole  of  his 
final  development  dates  from  that  crisis.  He 
wished  to  discover  the  deep  roots  of  the  tragic  art 
among  the  Athenians,  its  psychological  springs,  the 
state  of  mind  which  that  art  presupposed  in  those 
who  practiced  it,  either  as  authors  and  interpre- 
ters, or  as  audiences.  Gradually  he  conceived  an 
idea,  false  I  believe,  but  original,  interesting  and 
most  fruitful  in  consequence,  of  the  Greek  soul, 
temperament  and  race.  This  idea  he  toyed  with. 
It  penetrated  and  intoxicated  him.     From  it  he  was 


14  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

to  build  Up  a  whole  system  of  philosophy,  of  so- 
ciology and  morality.  All  Nietzsche  is  truly  in  the 
Origins  of  the  Greek  Tragedy. 

Here  is  the  general  idea  Nietzsche  formed  of 
the  tragic  art  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  Greek  soul. 
We  can  trace  it  in  spite  of  much  clumsiness,  grop- 
ing and  obscurity. 

A  race  there  was  whose  people  cared  for  nought 
but  beauty  and  life.  Especially  they  loved  life,  a 
strong  and  exuberant,  a  mighty  and  joyful,  an 
enthusiastic  and  exultant  life.  This  we  may  call 
their  Dionysian  soul.  But  they  loved  also  beauty, 
purity  of  line,  dignity  of  attitude,  majesty  of  the 
brow  and  serenity  of  the  eye.  That  we  may  call 
their  Apollonian  soul. 

These  two  aspirations  meet  and  unite  as  it  were 
in  the  Olympian  conception.  Olympus  is  a  dweUing 
place  for  superior  beings,  at  once  strongly  alive 
and  nobly  beautiful,  exultant  in  the  joy  of  being 
alive  and,  in  the  will  to  live,  immortal.  We  have 
too  often  repeated  this  word  immortal  and  thereby 
lost  the  sense  of  its  meaning.  Immortal, —  that  is 
insatiable  of  life,  wishing  for  a  life  eternal  and 
wanting  an  ever  inexhaustible  life.  These  dwellers 
in  Olympus  delight  also  in  being  beautiful,  in  being 
tall,  strong,  noble  and  harmonious.  They  take  de- 
light in  themselves  and  in  an  indefinite  progression 
of  beauty  in  themselves;  they  realize  beauty  and 
apply  themselves  ever  more  to  reahze  it.  The 
Olympian  is  a  higher  being  who  unites  in  his  person 
the  Dionysian  and  the  Apollonian  states. 

He  is  the  model  of  the  Greek.     In  his  own  life 


NIETZSCHE    SEEKS    HIMSELF  I5 

and  art,  the  Greek  tries  to  approach  that  ideal.  He 
seeks,  in  his  tragedy,  the  synthesis  or  at  least  the 
union  between  the  Dionysian  and  the  Apollonian 
states  of  mind.  He  places  the  Dionysian  state  in 
the  chorus  (this  is  very  doubtful)  and  the  Apol- 
lonian in  the  characters.  At  any  rate,  he  seeks  a 
form  of  art  where  life  and  beauty  can  be  realized 
and  deeply  welded,  where  beauty  is  shown  alive, 
moving  and  active  and  where  life  is  shown  beau- 
tiful, ever  beautiful  and  with  all  the  forms  of 
beauty,  music,  rhythm,  verse,  restful  attitudes,  in- 
timate union  of  beauty  and  life,  intimate  union  of 
the  Apollonian  and  the  Dionysian  states  of  mind 
and  the  near-realization  of  Olympianism. 

Even,  in  his  own  life,  the  Greek  still  sought  to 
realize  that  union  of  his  dream.  Watch  his  con- 
quering activity,  political  activity,  colonizing  ac- 
tivity, administrative  activity.  Withal  there  was 
art  always;  the  art  of  the  poets,  of  the  sculptors, 
of  the  architects  and  the  art  of  the  painters. 
Greece  poured  out  and  wished  to  pour  out  together 
her  life  and  her  art  over  the  Universe.  To  live 
and  to  live  beautifully,  to  make  the  world  live  and 
make  it  live  beautifully  —  such  seems  to  have  been 
her  constant  preoccupation  and  her  changeless  will. 

We  may  therefore  consider  the  Greek  tragedy 
as  the  intermediary,  one  could  risk  saying  as 
the  mediator,  between  the  Greek  Heaven  and  the 
Greek  Earth.  That  tragedy  offers  to  men  an  ap- 
proximate view  of  this  union  between  the  Apol- 
lonian and  the  Dionysian  states  which  the  im- 
mortals are  realizing  above.     It  places  before  them 


l6  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  example  of  this  union  between  the  Apollonian 
and  the  Dionysian  states  which  they  must  realize 
here  below.  Through  the  medium  of  the  Olympian 
tragedy,  the  Olympians  say  to  men :  **  Be  your- 
selves Olympians;  Life  and  Beauty  in  the  Heavens, 
Life  and  Beauty  upon  Earth;  Celestial  Life  and 
Beauty  taught  to  the  Earth  by  Tragedy." 

Does  not  all  this  put  many  things  in  the  tragedy 
of  the  Greeks?  Did  the  Athenians  seek  anything 
else  in  tragedy  but  an  opportunity  to  get  cloyed 
with  tears,  as  Homer  said,  and  to  satisfy  their  sen- 
timentalism? 

Not  at  all,  Nietzsche  replies.  It  is  sufficient  to 
read  both  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  realize  how  the 
Greeks  understood  tragedy  in  the  main,  evejt  when 
they  disagreed.  Plato  expelled  the  poets  from  his 
Republic  because  he  feared  that  they  might  with 
their  sentimentalism  cause  the  strong  and  joy- 
ful race  to  become  effeminate.  Aristotle,  ever  in 
contradiction  with  Plato,  defended  tragedy  on  the 
ground  that,  by  applying  the  sentimentalism  of  its 
audiences  to  false  notions,  it  purged  them  of  that 
very  sentimentalism  and  gave  them  back  to  life, 
energetic,  joyful  and  strong.  This  means  that  both 
men  wanted  an  energetic  race,  in  love  with  life  and 
that  both  well  understood  that  art  must  not  cause 
life  to  become  languid  and  relaxed. 

Nietzsche  moreover  went  beyond  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle—  to  use  a  Nietzschean  expression.  He  says 
that  this  very  taste  of  the  Greek  race  for  an  art 
which,  albeit  Dionysian  and  Apollonian,  was  pa- 
thetic, was  sad  and  laid  bare  human  horror  and 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS    HIMSELF  17 

miser}',  that  this  taste  reveals  a  strong  and  nimble 
race  which  did  not  shirk  from  a  display  of  misery 
and  sorrow,  which  did  not  demand  happy  endings, 
or  optimistic  lies,  which  had  enough  self-confidence 
to  contemplate  human  wretchedness  to  find  therein 
an  aesthetic  pleasure  and  not  to  be  dismayed  thereby. 
That  race  may  have  thus  needed  temporary  diver- 
sion from  its  optimism  in  order  to  find  it  again 
whole   and   intact   the    next   moment.     Perhaps    it 
felt  a  masculine   and   fierce   joy   in   looking  upon 
human  woe,  in  feeling  its  threat,  in  feeling  itself 
threatened  by  it  and  yet  marching  to  action  at  the 
risk  of  seeing  that  woe  befall  it.     Perhaps  it  de- 
rived a  virile  and  sane  pleasure  from  saying  before 
Goethe  "  Over  the  tombs,  forward !  "    At  any  rate, 
that  race  sought  in  art  no  solace,  no  narcotic  or 
stupefying  draughts  but,  like  the  strong  of  the  earth, 
I  do  not  know  what  bitter  and  tonic  beverage.  .  .  . 
Thus  possessed  of  a  view  of  Greek  art  which  is 
very  much  open  to  discussion  but  which  he  used  as 
truth,  Nietzsche  meditated  upon  this  revelation  and 
became  unsettled  concerning  all  he  had  been  taught. 
He  had  been  brought  up  on  German  romanticism, 
that  is  on  an  art  made  of  sadness,  melancholy  and  a 
sentimentalism   full  of  pity.     He  believed  he  had 
discovered  a  race  and  an  art  that  were  nimble,  joy- 
ful,  energetic,   in   love   with   life   not  with   death, 
Apollonian  in  their  calm  periods,  Dionysian  in  their 
moments  of  exaltation,  looking  towards  life  even 
when  Apollonian,  that  is  to  say,  remaining  Dionysian 
even  when  they  were  Apollonian.  .  .  .  That  was 
of  course  almost  the  opposite  of  romanticism.' 


l8  ON  READING   NIETZSCHE 

He  had  been  taught  pessimism,  that  is,  at  heart 
and  in  a  general  way,  the  beHef  that  life  is  bad. 
Now  he  thought  he  saw  an  art  and  a  race  drunk 
with  love  of  life  and  deeply  optimistic.  More  than 
that,  an  art  and  a  race  which  impressed  pessimism 
into  the  service  of  optimism  and  therefore  eclipsed 
both  and  wiped  out  especially  the  pedantic  and  child- 
ish oppositions  of  one  to  the  other,  their  false  an- 
tinomy, an  art  and  a  race  which,  beyond  optimism 
and  pessimism  met  life,  life  in  all  its  fulness,  other- 
wise life  in  beauty. 

He  had  been  taught  a  music  which  had  almost 
intoxicated  him  but  which  he  now  judged  debilitat- 
ing. Then  he  thought  he  had  discovered  a  race  and 
an  art  in  which  music  only  served  to  accompany 
lively  exaltations  of  the  sense  of  life  or  to  regulate 
virile,  joyful  or  martial  dances.  He  felt  himself 
much  shaken. 

Do  not  let  us  believe  that  this  brought  him  no 
regret,  that  he  did  not  look  back  or  that  his  state  of 
mind  became,  in  that  crisis,  all  of  a  sudden  the 
Dionysian  one.  I  have  warned  you  that  the  chief 
characteristics  of  Nietzsche  were  not  all  his  char- 
acter. In  spite  of  his  pride  and  warlike  disposition 
he  knew  the  sorrows  of  the  man  who  breaks  away 
from  his  country,  or  his  party,  or  his  coterie.  Every 
man  endowed  with  any  individuality  has  known  this 
sadness.  In  spite  of  all  his  pride,  he  had  had,  thank 
Heaven,  some  share  of  the  tractableness,  the  respect 
for  one's  teacher,  the  famulism  which  characterizes 
every  German  schoolboy.  His  heart  knew  anguish 
when  he  had  to  think  for  himself.     "  I  know  a 


NIETZSCHE    SEEKS    HIMSELF  I9 

man  who  had  accustomed  himself  from  childhood 
to  think  well  of  the  intellectuality  of  men,  that  is  of 
their  genuine  inclination  towards  matters  of  the  in- 
tellect .  .  .  and  to  hold  on  the  contrary,  a  very  poor 
opinion  of  his  ozcn  intellect  —  judgment,  memory, 
readiness  of  wit,  imagination.  He  granted  himself 
no  favor  when  he  compared  himself  to  others. 
Yet,  in  the  course  of  years,  he  was  compelled,  first 
once,  then  a  hundred  times  to  change  his  opinion 
on  this  point.  One  might  think  he  was  overjoyed 
and  greatly  satisfied  in  so  doing.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  was  something  of  that  feeling,  but,  as  he 
said  once,  there  was  also  bitterness  of  the  worst 
kind,  a  bitterness  I  have  not  known  in  my  previous 
yeais;  because  since  I  appreciate  others  and  myself 
with  more  accuracy  in  connection  with  intellectual 
needs  my  own  mind  seems  to  me  less  useful.  With 
him,  I  can  no  longer  think  myself  able  to  do  any 
good  work  because  the  mind  of  others  does  not 
agree  to  accept  it.  I  now  see  forever  before  me  the 
frightful  abyss  which  lies  between  the  man  who  is 
willing  to  help  and  the  man  who  needs  help.  That 
is  why  I  am  tortured  by  the  unhappiness  to  possess 
alone  my  own  mind  and  to  enjoy  it  as  much  as  it  is 
bearable.  But  to  give  is  better  than  to  possess. 
What  can  the  richest  of  all  men  do  when  he  lives  in 
the  solitude  of  a  desert?" 

We  cannot  meditate  too  deeply  upon  this  passage 
if  we  wish  to  understand  Nietzsche  well.  It  is  full 
at  once  of  modesty  and  haughtiness,  of  the  deception 
of  pride  and  of  that  feeling  of  solitude  which  is  at 
the  same  time  the  pride  and  the  misery  of  superior 


20  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

men.  This  'explains  the  usual  bitterness  of 
Nietzsche.  No  feeling  is  strong  unless  born  of  suf- 
fering. If  Nietzsche  was  personal  and  lonely  with 
impertinence  and  insolence,  it  may  be  first  of  all,  if 
you  like,  because  his  nature  prompted  him  to  ex- 
aggerate. Then,  if  you  like,  and  as  M.  Fouillee 
remarked,  it  was  because  Germans  do  delight  in 
magnifying  a  point  in  the  same  way,  as,  say,  Renan 
loved  to  tone  it  down.  Especially  it  was  because 
he  had  tremendously  suffered  with  his  isolation  and 
with  his  individuality  which  set  him  up  against  the 
ideas  of  the  multitude.  Therefore  he  was  taking  his 
revenge  in  a  way  when  exaggerating  that  individual- 
ity, that  originality,  that  isolation,  when  arming  it 
to  back  himself  up  and  free  himself  from  suffering, 
when  magnifying  it  almost  angrily  against  himself, 
saying :  "  Yes,  I  think  alone  against  all  the  others 
and  that  shall  no  longer  make  me  suffer."  It  is 
thus  with  the  man  who  was  once  shy  with  women, 
and  having  conquered  his  shyness,  takes  a  victor's 
pleasure  in  being  too  bold  with  them.  It  is  thus 
with  the  orator  who  began  by  being  paralyzed  with 
fright  on  the  platform  and,  having  cured  himself  of 
that  trouble,  becomes  too  much  of  an  improviser 
because  of  a  voluptuousness  that  was  born  of  his 
past  terror. 

After  all,  if  Nietzsche  did  break  away  with  a  sor- 
row that  most  honored  him,  he  did  it  with  that 
courage  which  lay  truly  at  the  bottom  of  his  nature. 
He  shook  off  the  influence  which  had  weighed  him 
down  with  a  push  of  his  shoulders,  sharp,  harsh  and 
final.     He  cured  himself  of  his  ailments  —  these  are 


NIETZSCHE   SEEKS   HIMSELF  21 

his  own  expressions  —  with  a  spontaneous,  a  very 
energetic  and  radical  medication.  "  It  was  great 
time  to  take  leave.  This  was  at  once  made  plain  to 
me.  Richard  Wagner,  seemingly  the  most  triumph- 
ant of  them  all,  but  in  reality  a  decrepit  and  desper- 
ate romantic,  collapsed  suddenly,  irretrievably  anni- 
hilated as  if  before  the  Holy  Cross.  Was  there  no 
German  then  with  eyes  to  see,  with  pity  in  his  con- 
science to  bewail  this  horrible  spectacle?  Am  I  then 
the  only  one  he  caused  to  suffer?  Never  mind. 
The  unexpected  event  threw  for  me  a  sudden  light 
on  the  place  I  had  just  left  and  brought  me  also  that 
shudder  which  one  feels  after  having  unconsciously 
run  a  very  great  danger.  When  I  took  up  my  lonely 
road  again  /  shivered.  A  little  later  I  fell  ill,  more 
than  ill.  tired  of  the  continuous  disillusion  in  the 
midst  of  all  the  things  that  still  raised  the  enthusiasm 
of  us  poor  men  of  today  .  .  .  tired  with  disgust  of 
all  that  is  feminism  and  disorderly  exaltation  in  that 
romanticism,  of  all  that  idealistic  lying  and  of  that 
softening  of  the  human  conscience  which  had  con- 
quered there  one  of  the  bravest,  tired  in  fine, — and 
that  was  not  the  least  of  my  hardships, —  with  the 
sadness  of  a  merciless  suspicion.  I  foresaw  that, 
after  that  disillusion,  I  was  to  be  sentenced  yet  to 
increase  my  caution,  to  despise  more  deeply,  to  be 
more  absolutely  alone  than  ever.  It  was  then  I 
took  side,  not  without  anger,  against  myself  and 
with  everything  which  was  justly  hurting  me  and 
painful  to  me.  .  .  .  This  event  in  my  life  —  the 
story  of  a  sickness  and  a  cure,  for  it  ended  in  a  cure 
—  was  it  but  an  event  personal  to  me  only?    Was 


22  ON  READING   NIETZSCHE 

that  merely  my  own  '  human,  all  too  human  '  ?  To- 
day I  am  tempted  to  think  it  was  not.  ...  I  recom- 
mend my  travel  books  to  those  whom  a  past  dis- 
tresses and  whose  mind  is  sufficiently  real  for  them 
to  suffer  also  of  the  mind  of  their  past.  Before  all, 
I  recommend  them  to  you  whose  task  is  the  hardest, 
you  the  scarce  men,  daring  intellectuals,  you  the 
most  exposed  of  all,  whose  duty  it  is  to  be  the  con- 
science of  the  modem  soul  and  who  must,  as  such, 
possess  its  science,  you  in  whom  is  gathered  all  there 
can  be  to-day  of  sickness,  poisons  and  danger.  To 
you  whose  destiny  it  is  to  be  more  ill  than  any  other 
individual,  because  you  are  more  than  mere  indi- 
viduals, you  whose  solace  it  is  to  know  the  path  to 
a  new  health  and,  alas,  to  follow  that  path.  .  .  ." 

He  often  turns  back  to  this  crisis  and  seeks  to 
explain  it.  He  seeks  especially  to  explain  that  past 
error  of  which  he  flatters  himself  so  highly  to  have 
recovered.  However  much  courage  we  may  have 
or  we  may  put  in  proclaiming  past  errors,  we  like 
nevertheless  to  show  that  we  had  erred  for  a  few 
good  reasons  and  that  therefore,  while  in  the  wrong, 
yet  we  were  not  so  very  far  from  being  in  the 
right.  He  has  explained  his  pessimism-roman- 
ticism as  being  the  Dionysian  instinct  gone  astray, 
the  latent  Dionysian  instinct  existing  in  him  and 
erring  only  in  seeing  a  manifestation  of  himself 
where  there  was  none.  It  is  a  half-mistake,  which 
might  have  led  deplorably  far,  but  yet  a  half -mis- 
take. Precisely  as  the  Greeks,  even  in  the  midst  of 
their  optimism,  in  reality  admitted  a  pessimism  of  art 
which  may  have  served  merely  to   reinforce  but 


NIETZSCHE    SEEKS    HIMSELF  23 

which  certainly  helped  to  stimulate  and  excite  their 
fundamental  optimism  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  same 
way  it  may  be  that  it  was  an  error  to  take  the  Ger- 
man pessimism  of  i860  for  something  analogous  to 
the  pessimism  of  art  of  the  Greeks,  for  something 
that  may  be  auxiliary  to  optimism  and  even  a  func- 
tion of  optimism. 

That  is  the  error  in  which  Nietzsche  thinks  he  fell 
and  he  flatters  himself  that  he  erred  in  that  much 
only :  "  I  was  considering  .  ,  .  the  philosophical 
pessimism  of  the  XlXth  century  as  the  symptom  of 
a  superior  force  of  thought,  of  a  more  reckless  dar- 
ing, of  a  fulness  of  life  more  triumphant  than  that 
proper  to  the  XVIIIth  (Hume,  Kant,  Condillac). 
I  took  the  tragic  knowledge  to  be  the  true  luxury 
of  our  civilization,  its  channel  of  lavishness,  the 
most  precious  noble  and  dangerous  one.  And  yet, 
owing  to  its  opulence,  a  permissible  luxury.  In  that 
same  way  I  understood  German  music  as  the  ex- 
pression of  a  Dionysian  power  of  the  German  soul. 
One  can  see  that  I  misjudged  them,  both  in  philo- 
sophical pessimism  and  in  the  German  music,  that 
which  gave  it  its  true  character,  its  romanticism. 
Every  art  and  every  philosophy  can  be  considered 
as  remedies.  .  .  .  But  there  are  two  sorts  of  pa- 
tients. There  are  those  that  suffer  from  a  super- 
abundance of  life  and  there  are  those  that  suffer 
from  impoverishment  of  life.  Those  that  suffer 
from  superabundance  of  life  want  a  Dionysian  art 
and  also  a  tragic  vision  of  inner  and  outer  life. 
.  .  .  The  Dionysian  not  only  takes  pleasure  in  the 
spectacle  of  what  is  terrible  and  disquieting;  he  loves 


24  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  terrible  fact  in  itself  as  well  as  all  the  luxury  of 
destruction,  disaggregation  and  negation  because  of 
an  overflow  which  he  feels  in  himself  and  which  he 
thinks  sufficient  to  turn  every  desert  into  a  fertile 
land.  .  .  .  Those  that  suffer  from  impoverishment 
of  life  ask  from  art  and  philosophy  mere  calm, 
silence,  a  smooth  sea  —  or  else  also  intoxication, 
convulsions,  torpor  and  madness.  This  double  need 
is  satisfied  by  romanticism  in  art  and  philosophy 
and  also  by  Schopenhauer  and  Wagner,  to  mention 
these  two  romanticisms,  the  most  famous  and  the 
most  expressive  among  those  I  had  then  wrongly 
interpreted,  not  at  all  however,  to  their  disadvan- 
tage :"  1 

Certainly  there  was  ground  for  mistake.  Since 
superabundant  and  degenerate  ones  ask  precisely 
the  same  things,  it  is  hard  to  know  from  what  they 
ask,  from  what  is  given  them  and  from  what  they 
accept,  whether  they  are  degenerate  or  super- 
abundant. It  is  hard  to  tell  if  the  Greek  tragedy 
is  a  sign  of  superabundance  in  those  who  cheer  it 
and  if  the  drama  of  Wagner,  which  follows  its 
every  feature,  is  a  sign  of  degeneracy  in  those  that 
applaud  it.  Therefore  Nietzsche's  mistake  was  a 
very  easy  one. 

The  difference,  says  Nietzsche,  is  romanticism. 
Quite  so;  but  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  very  hard  to 
define  romanticism  and,  on  the  other,  the  point  in 
question  is  the  psychic   disposition  of  those  who 

1  Gay  Savoir,  page  370.  I  have  recast  his  passage  to 
make  it  clearer,  without,  I  think,  betraying  its  meaning  in 
any  way. 


NIETZSCHE    SEEKS    HIMSELF  25 

listen.  It  is  likely  that  the  Greeks  would  have 
heard  Wagner  in  a  classical  spirit,  satisfied  therein 
their  superabundance  of  life  and  derived  none  but 
Dionysian  inspirations.  Again,  since  nothing  is 
more  difficult  to  gauge  than  the  psychic  moods  with 
which  Europeans  listened  to  Wagner's  music  in  the 
year  1865  whether  it  was  in  the  classical  or  in  the 
romantic  spirit,  I  must  repeat  that  Nietzsche's  error 
was  an  easy  one  to  fall  into.  It  was  so  easy  that, 
not  only  was  he  right  in  presenting  it  as  a  semi- 
error  of  judgment,  but  it  is  even  possible  that  it 
was  no  error  at  all. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  here  is  Nietzsche,  after  many 
attempts,  much  suffering  and  courage  —  this  I 
mean  most  seriously  —  utterly  cut  off  from  pessi- 
mism, romanticism  and  Wagner,  thoroughly  smitten 
with  the  French  of  the  XVIIth  and  XMIIth  cen- 
turies and  with  the  Greeks  of  the  days  of  Soph- 
ocles and  absolutely  passionate  for  two  things;  in- 
tense life  and  beauty. 

Let  us  pause  awhile  and  ask  what  it  is  he  had 
gained.  It  was  not  a  new  system  but  a  new  tend- 
ency. It  was  not  precisely  a  new  mentality  but  a 
new  heart.  He  loved  elsewhere.  He  had  there- 
after a  mastering  tendency  that  had  not  possessed 
him  before  and  that  was  the  opposite  of  the  pre- 
vious one. 

That  is  not  altogether  true,  for  these  things  are 
never  true.  Only  the  snakes  shed  their  skins,  and 
there  is  no  animal  that  changes  its  instinct. 
Nietzsche  was  ever  a  lover  of  novelty,  and  a  little 
also  of  eccentricity.     He  should  have  reflected  upon 


26  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

the  fact  that  he  never  followed  Kant  or  Hegel.  He 
had  been  with  Schopenhauer  because  Schopen- 
hauer was  the  latest  arrival.  He  was  with  Wag- 
ner precisely  for  the  same  reason.  Nietzsche  al- 
ways retained  a  taste  for  something  new  that  would 
somewhat  astonish  the  Philistine.  We  see  where 
he  is  now  —  what  is  he  ?  A  man  who  seeks  to  be 
up-to-date,  an  innovator,  a  revolutionary  and  still 
a  rebel.  How  is  he  to  achieve  this?  In  an  excel- 
lent way :  through  a  new  thought  that  would  be  his 
own.  He  seeks  novelty  in  originality  and  in  indi- 
viduality. He  is  quite  right.  Yet  he  is  still  obey- 
ing one  of  the  earlier  instincts  of  his  nature. 

This  is  what  we  should  say.  One  of  Nietzsche's 
inborn  tendencies  inclined  him  to  adopt,  towards 
his  twenty-fifth  year,  a  general  tendency  which  was 
assuredly  not  his  previous  one. 

However,  Nietzsche  found  himself;  at  least  he 
found  a  general  tendency  for  his  feelings.  Hence- 
forth he  shall  love  with  passion  everything  that  is 
intense  life  and  splendid  beauty  and  he  shall  love 
everything  that  may  contribute  to  the  realization 
here  below  of  intense  life  and  beauty.  He  shall  ex- 
perience suspicion,  then  aversion,  then  hatred,  then 
anger  against  everything  he  thinks  likely  by  its  na- 
ture to  hinder  or  delay  that  realization. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PREACHING  HIS  FAITH. 

Friedrich  Nietzsche  is  therefore  going  to  preach 
to  the  whole  world  and  especially  to  himself,  love 
of  life,  love  of  intense  life,  love  of  beauty,  love 
of  beauty  made  of  strength,  and  to  proclaim  ecsta- 
tically —  for  it  is  his  way,  he  was  born  a  lyrical 
poet,  a  Dionysian  poet — "  To  Life  !  Ever  more 
life!  Let  us  put  more  life  in  the  world!  Long 
live  Goethe !  "  Nietzsche  is  hardly  more  than  a 
nervous  and  frantic  Goethe. 

As  it  is,  he  thinks  he  has  discovered  that  if  the 
world  has  a  meaning,  it  has  but  a  meaning  in  beauty. 
It  can  only  be  understood  as  a  manifestation  of  a 
desire  for  the  beautiful  and  in  a  final  analysis,  only 
the  artists  understand  the  world.  For,  after  all,  if 
we  want  to  understand  the  world  as  a  manifestation 
of  justice,  we  are  very  soon  convinced  of  the  use- 
lessness  of  our  effort.  It  is  quite  certain  that,  out- 
side the  human  brain,  there  is  not  a  particle  of 
justice  in  the  world.  If  we  want  to  understand  the 
world  as  a  manifestation  of  morality,  our  hopes  are 
very  soon  shattered.  If  we  want  to  understand  the 
world  as  a  manifestation  of  goodness  and  to  repeat 
after  Plato  :  "  God  created  the  world  out  of  Good- 
ness," we  are  close  to  the  ludicrous.     It  is  plainly  ab- 


28  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

surd  to  conceive  a  power  that  creates  beings  out  of 
Goodness  to  make  them  suffer.  When,  however,  we 
look  upon  the  Universe  as  a  manifestation  of 
Beauty,  the  objections  vanish,  the  contradictions  of 
thought  are  solved,  the  absurdities  disappear  and 
what  scandalized  our  reason  and  our  conscience  is 
also  dissipated.  There  is  no  further  question  of 
"  evil  on  earth  "  if  we  say  that  the  Universe  has  its 
raison  d'etre  in  its  beauty  and  only  in  its  beauty. 
God  is  justified  if  he  is  an  artist. 

"  We  must  rise  resolutely  to  a  metaphysical  con- 
ception of  art  and  remember  that  proposition  pre- 
viously set  forth  that  the  world  and  existence  may 
only  appear  justified  in  so  far  as  they  constitute  an 
ccsthetic  phenomenon.  In  that  sense  the  object  of 
the  tragical  myth  for  instance  is  precisely  to  con- 
vince us  that  even  what  is  horrible  and  monstrous  is 
but  an  aesthetic  game,  played  ivith  itself  by  the  Will 
in  the  eternal  fullness  of  its  gladness."  The  world 
unintelligible  as  justice,  morality  or  goodness,  be- 
comes intelligible  as  beauty.  Later  Nietzsche  was 
to  say  the  opposite  of  this;  but  we  shall  see;  it  is 
possible  that  Nietzsche's  contradictions  may  be  solv- 
able. To  march  towards  life,  beauty  and  joy  is 
therefore  going  in  the  same  wise  as  the  world;  it  is 
to  follow  it,  to  adhere  to  it;  it  is  especially,  not  to 
enter  with  it  this  conflict  and  this  struggle  which 
tear  up  the  best  among  us.  How  important  this  is ! 
Not  to  leave  the  earth,  not  to  turn  one's  back  to  the 
earth,  not  to  deny  the  earth,  to  remain  faithful  to  the 
earth :  "  Brothers,  I  intreat  you,  remain  faithful  to 
the  earth;  place  no  faith  in  those  that  speak  to  you 


PREACHING    HIS    FAITH  29 

of  supra-terrestrial  hopes.  Willy  nilly  they  are 
prisoners.  They  are  contemners  of  life,  moribunds 
and  poisoned  men  themselves.  They  belong  to 
those  of  whom  earth  is  tired.  Let  them  depart! 
Brothers,  remain  faithful  to  earth  with  all  the  force 
of  your  virtue.  Let  your  generous  love  and  your 
knowledge  serve  the  meaning  of  the  earth.  I  beg 
of  you.  I  intreat  you.  Let  not  your  virtue  fly 
away  from  terrestrial  things  and  beat  its  wings 
against  walls  eternal.  Alas  there  has  always  been 
so  much  misguided  virtue !  Bring  back,  as  I  am 
doing,  misled  virtue  to  the  earth." 

Therefore,  our  certain  duty,  is  to  develop  our- 
selves, to  expand  ourselves  wholly  in  all  our  poten- 
tialities ;  it  is  to  succeed  in  becoming  fully  what 
we  feel  ourselves  to  be.  "  What  we  want,  we,  is 
to  become  ourselves."  It  is  a  matter  of  saying  yes 
to  life,  always  to  answering  it  yes.  That  is,  not  to 
accept  it,  for  that  is  merely  a  way  of  submitting  to  it, 
but  to  live  it  lovingly  and  passionately  to  embrace  it. 
"  This  last  yes,  addressed  to  life,  a  joyful  yes,  over- 
flowing with  petulancy,  is  not  only  the  highest  but 
also  the  deepest  vision,  that  which  truth  and  science 
confirm  and  maintain  with  the  greatest  strictness. 
Nothing  that  is  should  be  suppressed ;  nothing  is 
superfluous.  ...  In  order  to  understand  this,  one 
must  be  possessed  of  courage  and,  as  a  condition  of 
this  courage,  of  an  excess  of  strength,  because  in 
the  same  measure  in  which  courage  dares  carry  itself 
forward  does  strength  come  near  to  truth.  Knowl- 
edge and  affirmation  of  truth  are  a  necessity  for  the 
strong  man  just  as  the  weak  man,   prompted  by 


30  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

weakness,  feels  the  necessity  of  cowardice  and  of 
flight  before  reahty,  feels  the  necessity  of  what  he 
calls  the  ideal." 

Come  to  think  of  it,  pessimism,  idealism,  Chris- 
tianity, all  these  states  of  renouncement  to  the  world 
as  it  is  are  nothing  else  but  suicides.  They  are,  at 
least,  secessions.  Man  withdraws  from  the  real 
into  the  ideal  as  the  people  of  the  city  went  to  the 
Holy  Mount.  He  calls  "  holy  "  this  place  merely 
because  he  withdraws  thereon  but  there  is  no  reason 
whatsoever  thus  to  name  it  and  only  as  a  tomb  is  it 
hallowed.  We  are  part  of  the  Universe,  and  I  do 
not  see  very  well  what  could  give  us  the  right  to 
judge  it.  It  exists  and  we  exist.  Our  business  is  to 
accept  it  with  joy  and  to  go  where  it  goes,  perhaps 
helping  it  to  get  there  by  adding  to  its  expansion,  to 
its  broad  and  passionate  development,  to  the  glory 
of  its  movement,  of  its  rhythm  and  of  its  action. 
To  bring  to  it  rather  a  dissonance  is,  besides  being 
a  childish  attempt,  not,  it  seems  to  me,  very  rational. 
No,  I  do  not  want  the  stubborn,  pouting  and  sullen 
man ;  "  I  want  the  proudest,  the  most  alive,  the  most 
assertive  man.  I  want  the  world,  I  want  it  such  as 
it  is,  I  want  it  again  and  I  want  it  for  ever.  In- 
satiably do  I  cry  :  again ! — not  only  for  myself  but 
for  the  whole  performance  and  the  whole  spectacle, 
and  not  only  for  the  whole  spectacle  but,  when  all  is 
said  and  done,  because  the  spectacle,  is  necessary 
to  me,  I  am  necessary  to  it  and  because  I  make  it 
necessary." 

Of  course,  this  mood  of  the  soul  necessitates  a 
struggle  because  it  is  not  enough  to  accept  the  world 


PREACHING   HIS   FAITH  3I 

for  the  world  to  accept  you.  The  fact  that  one 
loves  it  compels  one  to  conquer  it. 

Precisely !  We  must  be  ready  for  love  and  for 
struggle,  for  love  of  the  world  and  for  a  struggle 
against  it  out  of  love  for  it:  "One  produces  only 
on  condition  that  one  is  rich  in  antagonisms ;  one 
remains  young  only  on  condition  that  the  soul  does 
not  slacken,  does  not  aspire  to  rest.  .  .  ,  Nothing 
has  become  more  alien  to  us  than  this  desideratum 
of  the  past,  to  wit,  the  peace  of  the  soul.  Nothing 
brings  us  less  envy  than  the  cud-chewing  morality 
and  the  thick  happiness  of  a  clear  conscience." 

But  this  rule  of  life  will  soon  be  turned  against 
you.  It  is  very  likely  that,  in  seeking  life,  life's  ex- 
tension, life  ever  more  alive  you  may  meet  pain, 
sufferings,  a  wound  and  a  fatal  one  too. —  Very  well 
and  precisely!  Complete  and  true  optimism  car- 
ries the  harm  along  w'ith  itself.  It  accepts  it  joy- 
fully, it  embraces  and  envelops  it  in  itself  until  this 
continuous  absorption  causes  it  to  disappear. 
"Dangerously  must  we  live!"  (This  is  one  of  the 
finest  sayings  ever  uttered  by  human  lips.)  We 
must  live  in  the  dangers  in  order  to  relish  life  in  its 
fulness  and  even  to  know  what  life  is  :  "Believe 
me,  the  secret  to  reap  the  most  fruitful  existence, 
the  highest  enjoyment  of  life,  is  to  live  danger- 
ously. Erect  your  cities  beside  the  Vesuvius. 
Send  out  your  ships  into  unexplored  seas.  Live 
in  a  state  of  war  with  your  fellowmen  and  with 
yourselves.  Be  brigands  and  conquerors  so  long 
as  you  cannot  be  possessors,  you  who  seek  knowl- 
edge.    Soon  the  time  will  have  passed  when  you 


32  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

were  satisfied  to  live  in  the  forests  as  so  many 
frightened  stags." 

Were  death  a  certainty,  it  remains  game  for  your 
optimist.  For  what  is  death?  A  proof  that  you 
sought  it.  Therefore  a  proof  that  you  have  lived. 
Therefore  it  is  part  of  Hfe  as  a  proof  thereof,  as 
its  stimulant,  as  its  aim  and  its  reward.  In  sooth, 
death,  thus  understood,  is  replete  with  life  and  in 
its  last  glitter,  it  is  the  supreme  glitter :  "  The  fin- 
est life  for  the  hero  is  to  grow  ripe  for  death  through 
constant  fight."  Therefore,  O  Grief,  where  is  thy 
sting?  I  see  it  very  well  and  to  it  I  render  my 
thankfulness.  But,  O  Death,  where  is  thy  victory  ? 
I  fail  to  see  it.  Death  does  not  triumph ;  I  it  is  who 
triumph  in  it. —  I  do  not  think  one  could  go  further 
into  optimism,  "  beyond  good  and  evil."  It  is  an 
optimism  that  envelopes  and  carries  with  itself 
both  good  and  evil  beyond  the  human  horizon  and 
that,  like  Hercules,  conquers  death  itself  by  this 
very  fact,  by  the  fact  that  it  transmutes  it  and 
turns  it  into  an  apotheosis  of  life. 

Nietzsche  gave  up  about  half  of  his  writings  to 
the  glorification  of  life,  love  of  life,  of  all  that  is 
Hfe.  I  shall  insist  no  longer.  It  is  not  analytical 
and  does  not  need  to  be  analyzed.  It  is  affirmative 
and  lyrical.  However  fine  from  the  point  of  view 
of  art,  it  is  not  meant  to  be  commented  upon  or 
discussed.  It  is  Nietzsche  in  presence  of  the  objec- 
tions and  discussing  himself  that  we  must  see  and 
follow.     Let  us  begin. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES: 
FIRST  OBSTACLES. 

Although  the  idea  already  shows  through,  Nie- 
tzsche remained  until  then  in  the  domain  of  feeHng. 
Struck,  as  an  artist,  with  the  beauty  of  Greek  life, 
as  he  saw  it,  he  was  in  love  with  beauty  and  free 
life,  with  beauty  and  free  power  and  he  reached 
the  following  general  feeling  concerning  existence. 
We  must  live  with  all  our  energies  and  create  a 
beauty  that  lives  in  ourselves  and,  outside  ourselves, 
through  a  daring  and  heroic  use  of  all  our  energies. 
That  is  well.  But  Nietzsche  saw  clearly  and  far. 
He  now  met  all  the  obstacles  which,  in  human  na- 
ture and  in  the  history  of  humanity,  are  opposed  to 
life  understood  and  felt  in  this  wise.  These  ob- 
stacles are  numerous.  He  saw  them  all,  I  think,  and 
attempted  to  destroy  and  to  smash  them  all,  not  one 
after  the  other — that  never  was  his  way — but  all  of 
them,  attacking,  according  to  his  mood,  now  this  one 
now  that  one,  sometimes  two  or  three  together  in  the 
ceaseless  fight  of  a  skirmisher  and  of  a  scout.  He 
criticised  the  obstacles.  That  is  to  say,  he  applied 
himself  to  show  the  inanity,  the  childishness,  the 
absurdity  or  the  mischievousness  of  everything  in 
human  institutions  and  in  human  opinions  which 

3i 


34  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

contradicted  or  thwarted  optimism,  and  prevented 
man  from  living  freely,  gaily,  powerfully,  heroic- 
ally and  beautifully. 

Of  course,  these  obstacles  are  innumerable  and  we 
shall  consider  with  him  merely  the  chief  ones. 

A  first  obstacle,  an  inner  one  as  it  were,  is  man's 
diffidence  in  his  search  for  truth,  the  diffidence  of 
man  towards  the  knozvledge  of  how  to  unravel,  to 
circumvent,  to  catch  and  to  conquer  truth.  We  are 
not  honest  thinkers.  We  are  afraid  of  truth ;  per- 
haps, as  Pascal  said,  we  hate  truth.  Knowledge 
frightens  us.  We  do  not  approach  it  with  honesty. 
It  is  because  we  know  that  it  has  its  dangers.  Of 
course  it  has  them.  It  has  them  in  proportion  to  its 
delights.  One  could  write  a  story  that  never  was 
written,  that  of  the  Don  Juan  of  Knowledge.  It 
would  be  neither  the  story  of  Montaigne,  of  Sainte- 
Beuve  nor  that  of  Renan.  Neither  of  the  three 
reached  the  last  chapter.  The  complete  life  story  of 
the  Don  Juan  of  Knowledge  would  be  as  follows. 
"He  lacks  love  for  the  things  he  discovers.  But  he 
is  possessed  with  brains  and  with  sensuality  and  he 
enjoys  the  hunt  and  the  intrigues  of  knowledge 
which  he  pursues  as  far  as  the  highest  and  furthest 
stars.  Here  it  ended  for  Montaigne,  Sainte-Beuve 
and  Renan.  At  length  there  is  nothing  left  for  him 
to  hunt  unless  it  be  that  which  is  absolutely  pain- 
ful in  knowledge,  as  the  drunkard  ends  by  drinking 
absinthe  and  nitric  acid.  For  this  reason  he  will 
end  in  a  desire  for  hell.  It  is  the  last  knowledge 
that  seduces  him.  Perhaps  that  also  shall  dis- 
appoint him  like  everything  else  he  has  learned. 


CRITICISING  THE   OBSTACLES  35 

There  he  should  remain  for  all  eternity.  Nailed  to 
deception  and  himself  become  the  marble  guest,  he 
shall  long  for  the  banquet  of  the  eventide  of  knowl- 
edge, a  feast  which  can  never  more  fall  to  his  share. 
For  the  whole  world  of  things  can  not  find  one 
single  mouthful  to  feed  this  hungry  man." 

One  can  well  understand,  therefore,  this  fear  of 
being  deceived  which  stops  man  at  the  very  outset  of 
his  personal  search  for  truth.  We  find  here  once 
more  the  general  cowardice  of  mankind.  But  we 
must  not  be  cowardly ;  we  must  not  be  fearful  of 
defeat,  because,  to  fear  defeat,  is  to  be  defeated 
before  the  fight.  It  is  to  be  beaten,  not  to  risk  los- 
ing. One  must  set  out  in  quest,  valiantly  and  with 
love  of  knowledge.  With  a  previous  love  of  knowl- 
edge like  that  prince  who  was  in  love  with  the  dis- 
tant princess  whom  he  had  never  seen.  W'e  must 
tell  ourselves  that  life's  only  sense  is  the  quest  of 
truth,  and  that  we  can  find  it  good  only  from  the 
moment  we  take  it  as  such :  "  No,  life  did  not 
deceive  me !  On  the  contrary,  I  find  it,  year  after 
year,  richer,  more  desirable  and  mysterious,  since 
the  day  when  the  great  deliverer  came  to  me,  I  mean 
that  thought  that  life  could  be  an  experience  to 
him  who  seeks  knowledge  instead  of  a  duty,  a 
fatality  and  a  fraud.  Let  knowledge  be  some- 
thing else  for  others,  as  for  instance,  a  resting  couch 
or  the  road  to  a  resting  couch,  or  again  a  pastime  or 
a  lounging.  To  me  it  is  a  world  of  dangers  and 
victories,  where  heroic  sentiments  also  have  their 
place  for  dancing  and  playing.  Life  is  a  means 
to  knowledge.     With  that  principle  in  one's  heart, 


36  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

one  may  not  only  live  daringly  but  also  live  joyfully 
and  laugh  for  sheer  joy.  How  could  one  under- 
stand how  well  to  laugh  and  well  to  live  if  one 
were  not  first  of  all  skilled  in  war  and  victory  ?  " 

In  seeking  knowledge,  one  must  not  only  be  hon- 
est and  loyal;  one  must  also  feel  the  scruples  of 
honesty.  We  must  love  truth  for  itself,  whatever 
it  may  turn  out  to  be,  to  such  an  extent  that  we  do 
not  love  it  for  ourselves  but  against  ourselves.  We 
must  ever  contradict  ourselves. —  This  might  be  a 
sufficient  explanation  for  the  innumerable  contradic- 
tions of  Nietzsche;  he  contradicts  himself  out  of 
loyalty;  he  does  not  strike  out  an  objection  which 
he  raises  against  himself, —  We  must  always  wel- 
come the  opposite  of  our  thought  and  scrutinize 
what  worth  this  opposite  may  have :  "  Take  an 
oath  never  to  hold  back  or  to  keep  silence  before 
yourself  concerning  what  can  be  raised  in  contradic- 
tion to  your  thoughts !  This  is  part  of  the  thinker's 
first  duty.  Every  day  you  must  make  war  also 
against  yourself,  A  victory  or  the  taking  of  a  but- 
tress are  no  longer  your  own  affair  but  the  business 
of  truth  —  and  your  own  defeat,  that  also  is  no 
longer  your  affair." 

But  this  honesty  in  the  quest  of  knowledge  is  ex- 
ceedingly rare  among  men.  As  a  rule  they  want  to 
deceive  themselves  and  to  be  deceived.  Now  what 
is  it  they  derive  from  this?  It  saves  them  from 
pain  personally,  true,  but  very  likely  it  entails  gen- 
eral pain  which  is  eternal.  For  it  is  probable  that 
man  is  born  to  understand,  at  least,  all  he  needs  in 
order  to  live.    Animals  know  and  understand  every- 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES  3/ 

thing  they  need  to  understand,  and  to  know  so  as  to 
satisfy  their  own  needs,  and  even  the  comforts  of 
their  Hves.  It  is  therefore  Hkely  that  man  should 
seek  all  the  truth  susceptible  to  make  him  happy. 
Yet  he  is  unhappy,  says  he.  Let  him  seek  then 
with  frankness  and  courage,  without  loving  error, 
without  trusting  in  error,  without  thinking  it  use- 
ful, without  this  fear  of  truth  which  is  a  strange 
tiniorousness.  This  obstacle  to  life  in  power  is  the 
first  one  that  should  be  demolished,  the  first  one  of 
which  we  must  show  up  the  inanity,  the  childish- 
ness, the  vileness  and,  properly  speaking,  the  inept- 
ness.  Let  us  have  at  least  the  courage  to  open  our 
eyes. 

At  all  events,  Nietzsche  leads  the  way.  No 
thinker  is  more  honest.  None  more  than  him  goes 
to  the  heart  of  things,  at  least  to  what  he  thinks  is 
the  heart  of  things,  without  troubHng  himself  about 
the  fear  that,  in  the  heart  of  things,  may  be  found 
something  unpleasant,  painful,  hateful  or  that  there 
may  even  be  nothing  at  all. 

Another  obstacle  prevents  one  from  reaching,  on 
the  one  hand,  truth  and  knowledge,  on  the  other,  life 
in  strength,  freedom  and  beauty.  This  obstacle  is 
habit,  which  in  this  case  is  called  tradition.  Human- 
ity lives  on  its  past  to  which  it  clings  by  force  of 
habit ;  and  this  past  is  and  can  be  nothing  but  error. 
Man  is  brought  up  by  these  errors.  Tliey  have  be- 
come as  a  foundation  of  his  nature  from  which  he 
can  not  easily  shake  himself  free.  These  errors  per- 
sist and  stretch  themselves  out.  Coming  into  con- 
tact with  truths  they  also  combine  with  them  and 


38  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

produce  new  errors  which  may  be  more  serious,  like 
every  error  that  is  mixed  with  truth  and  obtains 
thereby  new  credit :  "  Man  was  brought  up  by  his 
errors.  .  .  .  First  of  all  he  never  saw  himself  but 
incompletely."  Thereupon  he  conceived  a  rule  of 
life  that  could  not  be  applied  or  could  only  be  ill- 
applied  and  helped  to  give  him  an  incomplete  idea  of 
himself.  ..."  Secondly  he  attributed  imaginary 
qualities  to  himself  "  as  for  instance  the  faculty  to 
know  the  future,  or  the  faculty  of  free  will  or  the 
faculty  to  understand  the  supernatural.  These  er- 
rors were  producive  of  rules  of  life  which  still  sub- 
sist and  which  deceive  him.  "  Thirdly  he  felt  him- 
self in  a  false  situation  towards  the  animals  and  the 
whole  of  nature."  He  felt  himself  to  be  different 
from  them.  That  brought  him  to  believe  in  an  an- 
tagonism between  him  and  the  rest  of  nature,  which 
was  an  error  or  an  imperfect  view  and  which  set 
man  in  the  wrong  direction.^ 

"  Fourthly  man  has  invented  ever  new  codes  of 
goodness.  He  has  considered,  during  a  period  of 
time,  each  of  them  in  turn  to  be  eternal  and  absolute 
with  the  result  that  now  it  was  this  instinct,  now 
that  other  that  occupied  the  first  place  and  was 
ennobled  by  reason  of  this  appreciation."  In  this 
wise,  the  very  series  of  these  successive  codes  of 
morality  caused  general  error  or  general  confusion 
which  remained  in  the  human  mind,  darkening  it  or 
at  least  preventing  it  from  being  enlightened. 

One  could  add  several  others  to  these  four  initial 

^  Here  I  am  less  certain  of  my  interpretation. 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES  39 

or  as  good  as  initial  errors.  Who  could  therefore 
evince  any  surprise  at  the  fact  that  man  lives  in 
error  or  ever  returns  to  the  error  which  was  his  from 
the  cradle,  which  had  to  he  and  could  not  but  be  his? 
The  habit  is  there,  not  to  mention  heredity.  The 
habit  is  there,  which  prcscnrs  in  cultured  mankind 
what  was  natural  and  necessary  in  primitive  man- 
kind. 

It  is  not  only  habit.  Think  of  language.  Lan- 
guage is  the  prison  of  the  mind.  It  confines  the 
thought  of  the  men  of  today  within  the  thought  of 
the  men  of  times  past,  since  it  allows  the  men  of  to- 
day to  express  their  thoughts  but  in  the  words  of 
the  men  of  old,  smce  the  only  means  of  exit  it  gives 
my  thougiit  is  the  window  through  which  emerged 
the  thoughts  of  my  ancestors,  since,  in  last  analysis, 
it  compels  me  thus  to  take  the  thought  of  Descartes 
to  express  my  own.  Language  is  therefore  the 
keeper  of  ancient  errors  or,  it  may  be,  of  ancient 
truths.  At  all  events  it  is  conservative  and  anti- 
liberator.  It  is  "  a  great  danger  for  intellectual  free- 
dom.    Every  zvord  is  a  prejudice." 

When  we  realize  that  even  in  silence  we  speak 
nevertheless,  that  the  inner  thought  becomes  precise 
only  through  an  inner  word  and  in  it,  that  it  only 
found  itself  when  it  found  the  word  for  it,  that  as 
soon  as  I  think,  I  speak,  and  that  before  I  thought 
in  words  I  was  more  attempting  to  think  than  ef- 
fectively thinking,  we  can  understand  the  extent  to 
which  the  first  errors,  natural  and  necessary  as  they 
were,  enjoy  a  very  broad  sway,  one  that  can  be 
shaken  ofT  with  great  difficulty  and  that  is,  over 


40  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  mind  of  man,  almost  imprescriptible.  For  these 
primitive  errors  are  lasting  and  self-lasting  since 
they  pertain  to  weaknesses  of  our  nature  that  may 
be  eternal.  Their  force  lies  in  habit,  in  tradition 
and  in  the  necessity  we  find  to  express  them  to  a 
certain  extent  even  when  we  intend  to  express  an- 
other idea  or  even  one  that  opposes  it. 

And  so  Nietzsche  fights  and  intreats  us  to 
fight  the  philosophical  timorousness,  the  insufficient 
philosophical  honesty,  the  obscurity  which  often  is 
but  a  subtle  artifice  to  which  our  diffidence  ac- 
commodates itself  and  the  philosophical  dishonesty 
of  which  lures  us.  He  fights  and  begs  us  to  fight 
habit  and  tradition  which  are  very  often  again  mere 
forms  of  timorousness,  and  finally  the  verbal  sug- 
gestions that  mislead  us,  make  us  say  the  contrary 
of  what  we  wish  to  say  or  only  half  of  what  we  wish 
to  have  said  by  ourselves  and  understood  by  others. 

Such  are  the  first  obstacles  he  found  to  the  truth 
he  was  bringing  forth. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES: 
SOCIETY. 

Another  obstacle  to  the  diffusion  of  the  true  doc- 
trine hes  in  our  present  societies.  Let  us  state  from 
the  outset  that  this  is  the  cause  which  brought  some 
people  to  consider  Nietzsche  an  anarchist,  ahhough 
he  was  far  from  being  one  and  was  in  truth  precisely 
the  opposite.  He  was  no  anarchist.  He  was  not 
anti-social.  Rut  he  saw  very  clearly  that  all  modern 
societies,  and  all  societies  established  from  long  ago 
■were  directly  opposed  to  his  creed  and  by  their  very 
constitutions  hampered  his  creed.  Present  day  so- 
cieties, no  matter  which  one  we  take,  absolute  mon- 
archies, restricted  monarchies,  democracies,  none  of 
them  aims  to  foster  life  in  beauty  or  to  help  man  to 
Jive  freely,  powerfully,  and  beautifully.  If  they 
aim  at  anything,  which  is  after  all  doubtful,  it  is  at 
.causing  to  live  the  largest  possible  number  of  men. 
.'Such  is  certainly  the  aim,  subconsciously  conceived 
and  felt,  of  their  general  bearing. 

Vaguely  thinking  of  this,  at  least  not  thinking  of 
anything  cjlse,  they  can  but  aim  at  assuring  to  all 
men  an  exceedingly  mediocre  life,  a  .small,  mean  and 
restricted  life  which  does  neither  dvsturb,  nor  en- 
croach, nor  expand,  a  life  so  arrang.cfl  that  all  are 
.cramped  and  restricted  and  tha^  po  o^^  "i^y  P^c- 

41 


42  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

vent  the  others,  first  from  being  born  and  then  from 
possessing  they  also,  each  his  own  httle  corner,  his 
little  place,  his  small  field  o£  evolution.  The  ideal 
of  each  of  these  societies  resembles  that  of  the  archi- 
tect or  of  the  director  of  a  hospital  who  would  meas- 
ure most  minutely  the  indispensable  amount  of  air 
cubics  and  then  say :  "  By  gaining  five  more  centi- 
meters on  each  one  I  shall  get  four  extra  beds  in, 
maybe  five." —  It  is  hard  to  live  freely,  beautifully, 
powerfully  and  superabundantly  with  this  system 
and  with  this  practice. 

Human  societies  are  most  evidently  careless  of 
the  quality  of  their  ordinary  citizens  and  of  their 
soldiers  alike.  What  matters  to  them  is  the  quan- 
tity. They  wish  neither  to  do  big  things,  nor  beauti- 
ful things  nor  even  perhaps  good  things.  They  wish 
to  do  numerous  things.  It  seems  that  this  pertains 
to  their  very  constitution,  apart  from  any  political 
system.  They  feel,  or  think  they  feel  that  men 
constitute  themselves  in  society  to  guarantee  each 
other  against  a  possible  enemy  and  to  live  in  peace 
and  happiness,  not  at  all  to  live  dangerously. —  One 
uses  the  term  "  constitute  themselves  in  societies  " 
and  it  really  matters  very  little  that  this  is  his- 
torical nonsense ;  the  point  is  only  one  of  goal  and  of 
ideal  aim.  Consequently  men  constitute  themselves 
into  societies  rather  to  call  to  life  the  largest  possible 
number  of  people  and  to  maintain  them  alive  than 
to  make  them  live  with  beauty,  power  and  danger. 
After  all,  the  very  fact  that  the  largest  possible  num- 
ber of  people  are  called  to  life  restricts  the  space 
as  we  have  seen  and  sets  up  in  itself  an  obstacle  to 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      SOCIETY  43 

life  beautiful.  "  Altogether  too  many  men  are  born  ; 
the  State  was  invented  for  the  superfluous  ones. 
See  how  it  attracts  them,  the  superfluous  ones! 
How  it  entwines  them,  how  it  chews  and  rechews 
them !  "  Modem  Societies  —  and  they  may  be 
termed  "  modern  "  back  to  a  fairly  distant  past — are 
by  their  nature  anti-Nietzschean  and  Nietzsche  can- 
not prevent  himself  from  being  somewhat  anti- 
social (and  especially  seeming  to  be).  Most  cer- 
tainly, why  not  admit  it?  He  must  have  had  his 
moments  of  anti-societism  and  said  :  "  Life  such 
as  I  conceive  it  may  quite  possibly  be  that  of  the 
savage  and  may  be  only  realized  fully  or  brilliantly 
in  the  *  natural  state  '  or  in  that  primitive  state,  with 
its  loosely  organized  societies  that  is  sometimes  re- 
ferred to  as  the  natural  state.  In  the  end,  it  is  the 
social  invention  itself  that  stands  against  me." 

He  may  have  said  that  to  himself,  albeit  I  do  not 
find  it  anywhere  in  his  writings,  and  Nietzsche  wrote 
down  everything  he  thought  with  much  cour- 
age and  daring.  He  may  have  thought  that  some- 
times and,  personally,  I  know  him  to  have  been  too 
intelligent  and  do  not  doubt  that  he  made  that  re- 
flection. But  he  was  persuaded,  perhaps  wrongly 
so,  that  there  had  been  a  race,  meaning  the  Greek 
race,  that  was  organized  into  a  society  and  yet 
created  a  free,  beautiful  and  powerful  life,  and  he 
did  not  tarry  over  the  anti-social  idea.  He  left  to  a 
few  disciples  of  his,  who  may  have  been  logical,  the 
task  or  the  pleasure  of  deducting  that  idea  from  his 
premises. 

Modern  Society  it  is  of  which  he  has  made  a  penc- 


44  ON    READING    NIETZSCHfi 

trative,  subtle  and  harsh  criticism.  He  attacked  at 
once,  vigorously  and  disdainfully,  modern  society, 
the  utilitarian  society,  the  society  whose  dream  is 
to  give  to  a  very  large  number  of  human  beings  a 
small,  narrow,  ugly  and  disgusting  happiness.  That 
society  is  the  pet  aversion  of  Nietzsche.  It  is  his 
bete  noire,  of  if  you  like,  his  black  herd.  He  pur- 
sued it  with  fiery  jeers  that  are  admirable.  That 
society  confessedly  wants  two  things  that  are  emi- 
nently anti-natural,  that  is,  justice  and  equality.  It 
tends  to  a  goal  that  is  eminently  anti -aesthetic, 
that  is  again  anti-natural,  to  mediocrity  and  to  flat- 
ness. Listen  to  the  tarantulas.  Listen  to  them 
speaking  of  justice,  that  is,  of  spite  and  vengeance : 
"  It  is  precisely  what  we  call  justice  when  the  world 
is  filled  with  the  storms  of  our  vengeance."  .  .  . 
"  Thus  prattle  the  tarantulas  among  themselves." 
..."  We  want  to  wreak  our  vengeance  upon  all 
those  that  are  not  down  to  our  own  measurements 
and  to  cover  them  with  our  outrages."  .  .  ."  To  this 
do  the  tarantulas  pledge  themselves  in  their  hearts." 
.  .  .  And  again :  "  And  *  Will  to  Equality  '—  that 
itself  shall  henceforth  be  the  name  of  virtue;  and 
against  all  that  hath  power  will  we  raise  an  out- 
cry !"..."  They  are  people  of  bad  race  and  line- 
age ;  out  of  their  countenances  peer  the  hangman  and 
the  sleuth-hound.  Distrust  all  those  that  talk  much 
of  their  justice!  Verily,  in  their  souls  not  only 
honey  is  lacking."  ..."  My  friends,  I  will  not  be 
mixed  up  and  confounded  with  others.  There  are 
those  that  preach  my  doctrine  of  life,  and  are  at  the 
same  time  preachers  of  equality,  and  tarantulas." 


CRITICISIXG   THE  OBSTACLES!      SOCIETY  45 

..."  With  these  preachers  of  equality  \Nill  I  not 
be  mixed  up  and  confounded.  For  thus  speaketh 
the  justice  unto  me:     '  Men  are  not  equal.'  " 

Nietzsche  has  never  done  with  the  tarantulas. 
He  considers  Socialists  as  the  "most  honest,  the  nar- 
rowest and  most  noxious  race  of  the  Universe."  He 
holds  them  to  be  in  love  with  uniformity,  mediocrity 
and  ugliness,  and  most  foreign  to  life,  most  hostile 
to  life  and  most  destructive  to  life.  The  democrat 
stands  before  him  as  some  strange  friend  of  the 
shadows  and  of  damp  dark  places,  the  least  Apollon- 
ian person  in  the  world.  The  socialist  is  for  him  — 
and  he  is  right  —  but  a  logical  democrat,  a  creature 
of  night  whose  only  cure  is  to  blow  upon  anything 
that  may  even  slightly  resemble  the  sun. 

An  unpleasant  factor  is  that  those  that  could  be 
powerful,  those  that  are  marked  to  lead,  those  whom 
the  Greeks  would  have  named  aristdi,  even  they,  ac- 
cept a  certain  solidarity  with  the  tarantulas.  They 
think  or  seem  to  believe  first  in  the  necessity  for  the 
latter's  existence,  then  in  the  legitimacy  of  their  de- 
sires and  finally  they  associate  with  them.  It  is 
wrong :  "  Life  is  a  source  of  joy ;  but  wherever  the 
mob  comes  to  drink,  all  the  fountains  are  poisoned. 
...  I  asked  one  day,  nearly  choked  by  my  own 
query:  What!  Does  Life  need  the  mob?  .  .  . 
And  I  turned  my  back  upon  the  dominators  when  I 
realized  what  it  was  these  days  they  called  domi- 
nation :  bargaining  and  trafficking  on  equal  terms 
with  the  mob." 

Thus  is  established  a  strange  modern  State,  the 
State  resting  on  the  mob.  the  State-Mob,  one  could 


46  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

say  and  this  State,  which  is  anti-natural  and  anti- 
aesthetic  thinks  itself  adorable,  affirms  that  it  is 
adorable  and  makes  others  adore  it.  It  is  "the 
new  idol."  It  invites  worship  on  the  strength  of  a 
lie,  similar  to  that  which  led  people  to  the  ancient 
sanctuaries  of  oracles.  If  it  be  not  a  lie,  at  least 
it  is  a  counter-truth  in  which  the  State-Mob  may  be- 
lieve and  in  which  the  mob  does  believe.  It  says  it 
is  the  people,  calls  itself  the  people  while  it  is  pre- 
cisely the  opposite.  "  The  State  is  the  coldest  of  all 
the  cold  lies.  It  lies  coldly  and  here  is  the  lie  which 
crawls  from  its  mouth :  *  I,  the  State,  I  am  the 
People ! '  .  .  .  It  is  a  lie !  They  were  creators, 
those  that  founded  the  nations  and  suspended  a  neiv 
faith  and  love  above  them:  Thus  they  were  serving 
life.  But  they  are  destructors,  those  that  set  traps 
for  the  large  number  and  call  that  a  State;  they 
suspend  a  sword  and  a  hundred  appetites  above 
them." 

Here  is,  in  truth,  the  modern  State.  It  persuades 
the  people  that  it  springs  up  from  the  people  and  is 
the  people.  It  uses  this  pretext  to  lower  the  people 
by  adulation  instead  of  raising  it  towards  some- 
thing lofty.  Instead  of  awakening  and  stimulating 
the  people,  it  lulls  them  to  sleep.  Instead  of  dis- 
ciplining the  people,  it  scatters  and  pulverizes  them 
or  lets  them  remain  in  their  natural  scattered  and 
pulverized  condition.  And  it  is  in  order  to  accom- 
plish this  that  it  wishes  to  be  worshiped  and  that 
it  "  roars,  monster  that  it  is."  ..."  There  is  noth- 
ing greater  than  me  upon  earth  and  I  am  the  dis- 
posing finger  of  the  Lord." 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      SOCIETY  4/ 

Where  does  all  this,  if  you  please,  lead  us? 
Where  can  it  lead,  where  is  it  bound  to  lead?  Mod- 
ern societies,  with  their  taste  for  the  greater  num- 
ber, for  the  ever  greater  number,  for  mediocrity  and 
for  platitude  and  the  State-Idol  with  its  taste  for  uni- 
formity and  its  natural  hatred  for  all  individual 
superiority,  the  Statc-Rabblc  in  a  word  —  these 
mean  nothing  else  but  the  more  or  less  slow  suicide 
of  humanity :  "  The  State,  such  as  we  have  defined 
it,  is  in  every  place  where  all  men,  good  and  bad, 
are  absorbing  poisons.  The  State  is  wherever  all 
men,  good  or  bad,  are  ruining  themselves.  The 
State  is  ivherevcr  slow  suicide  of  all  men  is  called 
life." 

If  we  imagine  what  this  regime  will  make  of  man- 
kind if  no  change  takes  place,  we  foresee  them  in  the 
distant,  even  possible  in  the  near,  future :  "  I  pass 
among  these  people  and  keep  my  eyes  open;  they 
are  become  smaller  and  continue  to  become  ever 
smaller.  This  is  due  to  their  doctrine  of  happiness 
and  virtue.  Limpingly  they  advance  and  thus  prove 
an  obstacle  to  those  that  wish  to  hurry.  ...  A  few 
of  them  intend ;  but  the  most  of  them  are  intended. 
.  .  .  They  are  round,  honorable  and  kindly  to  each 
other,  as  the  grains  of  sand  are  round,  honorable 
and  kindly  towards  the  grains  of  sand.  Modestly  to 
embrace  a  small  happiness,  this  they  call  resignation. 
In  the  same  breath  they  are  already  squinting  mod- 
estly in  the  direction  of  a  new  small  happiness. 
They  have  after  all  but  one  desire:  that  no  one 
shall  harm  them ;  this  ihcy  call  virtue  but  it  is 
cowardice.  ...  To  them  virtue  is  what  renders  one 


48  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

modest  and  tame.  Thus  they  made  of  the  wolf  a 
dog  and  even  of  man  the  best  domestic  animal  of 
man.  .  .  .  This  is  mediocrity,  albeit  named  modera- 
tion." 

See  them  well  as  they  will  be  to-morrow.  They 
will  have  discovered  happiness.  They  will  be  sure 
of  that  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  will  have  dis- 
covered what  they  are  now  seeking  and  is  not  at  all 
difficult  of  discovery.  They  are  now  beforehand 
calling  it  happiness,  and  it  is  a  thing  that  should 
sicken  one :  "  Lo,  I  show  you  the  last  man.  *  What 
is  love,  creation,  desire  ?  What  is  a  star  ? '  So 
asketh  the  last  man  and  blinketh."  "  We  have  dis- 
covered happiness "  the  last  men  say  "  and  they 
blink.  They  have  given  up  the  regions  where  life  is 
hard  because  they  need  warmth.  One  still  loveth 
one's  neighbor  and  rubbeth  against  him,  for  one 
needeth  warmth.  .  .  .  They  still  work,  for  work  is 
a  pastime.  But  they  take  care  that  this  pastime 
shall  not  hurt  them.  They  want  neither  poverty 
nor  riches ;  either  of  them  is  too  burdensome.  Who 
would  care  still  to  issue  orders?  And  who  obeys? 
Both  actions  cause  care.  No  shepherd  and  one 
single  flock!  All  want  the  same  thing.  All  are 
equal.  Whoever  thinketh  differently  goeth  volun- 
tarily into  the  mad  house. —  We  have  discovered 
happiness,  the  last  men  say ;  and  they  blink." 

It  seems  that  such  are  truly  the  modern  State, 
its  principles,  its  present  and  its  future.  If  it  be 
the  case,  does  it  not  turn  its  back  to  culture,  to  art, 
beauty  and  civilization  and,  generally,  to  what  is 
usually  called  human  life?     May  it  not  be  that  we 


CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES:      SOCIETY  49 

are  standing  between  two  stages  of  barbarism  with 
our  "  chair  in  the  middle  "  ?  One  of  them  is  behind 
us,  a  violent,  restless  and  chaotic  barbarism.  The 
other  awaits  us;  it  is  enervated,  decrepit,  soft  and 
lives  in  stagnant  air.  This  progress  vaunted  by  our 
generation  —  is  it  not  that  of  the  quicksand  or  of  the 
mire  that  rises  in  gentle  and  imperceptible  motion 
from  our  legs  to  our  waist  and  from  our  waist  to 
our  shoulders  ?  We  see  it  rising  with  precision  and 
sureness  and  then  proudly  we  exclaim :  "  Oh,  oh  ! 
Something  is  rising  !  "  But  it  is  not  necessary  that 
we  should  inquire  whether  it  is  not  we  who  are  go- 
ing down  —  that  is  not  impossible  —  and  whether 
the  time  is  not  nearing  when  some  one  will  say: 
**  and  there  remained  but  mire." 

Nietzsche  at  least  is  sure  of  it,  and,  having  ex- 
amined human  society,  he  thus  concludes  for  the 
time  being:  "this  also  is  an  obstacle  to  my  faith. 
This  is  contrary  to  life,  beauty  and  light."  This  is 
an  easy  descent  into  the  night,  facile  descensus 
Averno.  Either  we  must  have  no  society  or  else 
we  need  one  that  were  precisely  the  opposite  of 
this.  We  shall  go  into  this  later  on.  For  the  time 
being  let  us  note  one  sure,  well-gotten  point  :  this 
society  is  another  obstacle. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES: 
RELIGION. 

Are  the  belief  in  the  supernatural  phenomenon,  the 
faith  in  God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the 
metaphysics  and  the  religious  signs  of  human 
strength  or  of  human  weakness ;  do  they  denote 
health  or  sickness  in  the  human  race ;  do  they  com- 
fort or  depress  it?  This  is  not  one  of  the  queries 
that  Nietzsche  sought  most  deeply  to  answer,  but 
ask  himself  the  question  he  did  nevertheless  and,  as 
always,  with  anguish.  He  answered  it,  as  always 
again,  with  final  decision.  Metaphysics  and  reli- 
gions are,  to  begin  with,  a  sign  of  weakness  in 
humanity  and  they  increase  and  enhance  this  weak- 
ness from  which  they  spring.  Hardly  any  one  will 
deny  that  the  religions  are  born  of  the  terror  of 
ignorant  men  in  the  presence  of  the  forces  of  na- 
ture. It  is  therefore  primarily  from  a  weakness  that 
the  religions  are  born.  It  is  useless  to  insist  on  this 
point.  But  from  being  terrifying,  the  religion  be- 
came beneficent  and  this  necessitates  closer  scrutiny. 
From  being  terrifying  the  religions  have  become 
beneficent.  This  means  first  that  men  took  to  sup- 
posing the  existence  of  good  and  favorable  powers 
by  the  side  of  the  evil  and  hostile  powers  that  sur- 
rounded them.     It  means  again  that  they  bethought 

SO 


CRITICISING  THE   OBSTACLES:      RELIGION         5I 

themselves  to  propitiate  the  hostile  forces  by  means 
of  words  and  respectful  actions  and  to  convert  them 
into  favorable  and  beneficent  powers.  Do  you  not 
see  on  all  sides  the  weakness  that  trembles,  the 
weakness  that  flatters  and  the  weakness  that  be- 
seeches? The  Instinct  of  IVeakncss,  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  weakness  —  this  is  what  creates  in  man 
the  need  of  religion.  This  need  creates  its  own 
organ  and  the  organ  shall  last  so  long  as  the  need 
persists.  Religion  and  metaphysics  show  the  need 
of  general  certainty,  of  universal  certainty  wherein 
shall  fit  the  particular  certainties,  or  of  fundamental 
certainty  upon  which  shall  rest  the  certainties  of  cur- 
rent use.  Therefore  it  is  a  lack  of  will  which  we 
find,  historically  speaking  at  the  origin,  and  morally 
speaking  at  the  root,  of  every  religion  and  every 
metaphysics.  For  the  will  needs  no  certainty.  It 
proceeds  to  its  goal  of  its  own  accord  and  simply 
because  it  is  and  i)ecause  it  is  by  nature  inclined  to 
spring  up  and  to  spread. 

There  are  therefore  those  that  are  inclined  to  ad- 
mit that  the  need  to  believe  is  a  form  of  the  need 
to  act.  The  need  to  believe  is  a  form  of  the  need  to 
rest  or  at  least  to  lean  on  something.  *'  We  can 
measure  the  degree  of  the  strength  of  our  faith  — 
or  more  exactly  the  degree  of  its  weakness  —  by  the 
number  of  principles  that  our  faith  refuses  to  see 
shaken  because  they  are  used  as  supports.  .  .  .  Man 
is  thus  made:  one  can  refute  a  thousand  times  an 
article  of  his  faith.  If  he  needs  it  he  will  always 
continue  to  hold  it  true.  .  .  .  This  desire  of  cer- 
tainty also  ...  is  the  desire  for  a  support,  for  a 


52  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

prop,  in  short,  that  instinct  of  weakness  which,  if  it 
does  not  create  the  religions,  the  metaphysics,  and 
the  principles  of  all  kinds,  at  least  preserves  them. 
It  is  a  fact  that  around  all  these  positive  systems 
rises  the  fog  of  a  certain  pessimistic  darkening, 
either  fatigue,  fatalism,  deception,  or  fear  of  a  new 
deception,  or  again  display  of  resentment,  bad  hu- 
mor, exasperated  anarchism  (interior  anarchism,  a 
powerlessness  in  ruling  one's  self  which  becomes 
angry?)  or  again  symptoms  whichever  they  may  be 
of  the  feeling  of  weakness,  or  masquerades  result- 
ing from  that  feeling.  .  .  .  Faith  is  always  more  in 
demand,  need  of  faith  is  ever  more  urgent,  as  the 
will  fails.  .  .  .  Hence  we  should  perhaps  conclude 
that  the  two  great  religions  of  the  world.  Buddhism 
and  Christianity,  might  have  very  well  found  their 
origin  and  especially  their  sudden  development  in  a 
colossal  access  of  sickness  of  the  will." 

Let  us  make  a  remark  here  which  will  confirm 
this.  Man  being  ordinarily  in  a  certain  state  of 
weakness  it  follows  that  even  his  states  of  strength, 
his  periods  of  health  and  energy,  inspire  him  with 
the  belief  in  God.  When  man  is  utterly  conscious 
of  his  weakness  he  turns  to  God.  But  when  man 
is  astonished  at  his  own  strength,  whenever  he  hap- 
pens to  have  any,  he  attributes  it  to  God.  "The 
states  of  power  inspire  in  man  the  feeling  that  he  is 
independent  of  the  cause  of  these  states,  that  he  is 
not  responsible  for  them.  They  come  unsought  and 
therefore  we  are  not  their  authors.  The  conscious- 
ness of  a  change  in  ourselves  without  our  having 
wanted  it  requires  an  outside  will.    Man  has  not 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:       RELIGION  53 

dared  to  attribute  to  himself  all  the  surprising  and 
strong  moments  of  his  life.  He  has  fancied  those 
moments  to  be  passive  and  thought  he  was  submit- 
ting to  them  and  governed  by  them.  .  .  .  Thus  he 
made  two  parts  of  himself,  one  pitiful  and  weak  and 
he  called  it  man,  the  other  very  strong  and  sur- 
prising and  he  called  it  God. " 

Therefore  everything  led  man  to  religion.  He 
was  led  by  his  weakness  and  by  his  strength,  by  his 
accidental  strength  in  proportion  even  to  his  ordi- 
nary weakness  and  also  by  his  ordinary  weakness  in 
proportion  to  his  accidental  strength ;  because  if  he 
were  always  weak  he  could  not  feel  his  weakness 
and  it  is  his  accidental  strength  that  causes  him  to 
feel  and  to  fathom  his  customary  weakness.  Here 
is  seemingly  the  origin  of  the  religions  sufficiently 
explained  since  one  can  explain  from  what  precedes 
why  they  are  and  why  it  is  hardly  possible  that  they 
should  not  be. 

Add  to  this  instinct  which  craves  religions,  to  this 
double  instinct  which  creates  religions,  or  rather  to 
this  double-headed  instinct  doubly  creative  of  reli- 
gions, add  the  creators  themselves,  that  is  the  or- 
ganizers of  the  religious  instinct.  Either  through 
rapid  intuition  or  deep  reflection  these  do  a  thing 
which  is  very  simple  in  itself  but  has  consequences 
that  are  incalculable.  They  think  out  the  state, 
the  natural  also  the  acquired,  then  and  especially  the 
ordinary  and  general  state  of  a  people  in  that  state : 
Firstly  they  discipline  it,  secondly  they  divinize  it. 
They  give  it  the  backing  of  a  theological  and  theo- 
cratic idea. 


54     •  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

They  discipline  it :  from  what  was  common  prac- 
tice they  make  a  rule  (practice  observances  and 
rites),  a  secondary  thing  important  nevertheless  for 
what  we  do  because  we  are  in  the  habit  of  doing  it 
grows  wearisome.  What  we  do  because  it  is  the 
rule  and  the  duty  is  attractive  and  even  comforting. 
,The  rite  destroys  weariness  by  imparting  dignity  to 
wearisome  actions. 

They  divinize  the  ordinary  life  of  a  people.  They 
persuade  men  that  their  ordinary  lives  have  a 
meaning  and  a  beautiful  meaning,  a  divine  meaning, 
a  mysterious  meaning  that  is  pleasant  to  a  superior 
power  and  desired  by  it. 

The  Jews  are  a  plundering  and  pillaging  nation. 
That  life  does  not  satisfy  them  every  day.  A  man 
comes  to  them,  telling  them  that  there  is  a  God,  who 
loves  them  and  them  alone,  who  hates  all  the  nations 
that  are  not  their  own  and  who  delights  in  seeing 
the  other  nations  pillaged,  betrayed  and  ravaged  by 
them.  At  once  the  life  of  this  nation  takes  on  a 
meaning,  and  a  beautiful  meaning.  It  becomes  the 
good,  a  moral  good,  an  ideal  for  which  one  is  ready 
to  sacrifice  one's  life,  at  all  events  something  beauti- 
ful which  can  no  longer  prove  distasteful  or  tiring 
or  futile.  This  man  that  said  this  to  that  nation 
transposed  an  instinct  of  that  people  and  sent  it  soar- 
ing, with  the  result  that  the  nation  first  of  all  found 
itself  in  the  thought  of  this  man,  which  was  neces- 
sary, and  found  itself  again  in  beauty  with  ex- 
traordinary consequences  for  its  moral  welfare  and 
its  happiness. 

To  this  same  people,  which  had  become  tired  and 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:      RELIGION         55 

languishing,  exhausted  as  it  was  by  long  civil  wars, 
and  to  some  other  nations  also  there  came  another 
man  that  extolled  and  praised  as  divine  what? 
Their  very  life,  their  small,  mean  and  lowly  life.  He 
interpreted  it  in  beauty.  "  He  finds  about  him  the 
life  of  small  people  of  the  Roman  provinces.  He 
interprets  it.  He  gives  it  a  superior  meaning  and 
thereby  the  courage  to  despise  every  other  kind  of 
life,  the  quiet  fanaticism  that  the  Moravian  Breth- 
ren were  to  take  up  again  later,  the  secret  and  sub- 
terraneous self-confidence  that  grows  ceaselessly 
until  it  is  ready  to  overcome  the  world." 

What  did  Buddha  find  about  him?  Scattered 
practically  in  all  the  classes  of  his  people  he  found 
men  who  were  good,  kindly,  lazy  and  soft.  He  per- 
suaded them  of  nothing  at  all  except  this,  that  lazi- 
ness was  a  superior  state,  a  divine  state,  that  the 
aspiration  to  rest  and  to  nothingness  was  the  highest 
conception  of  the  world  and  that  God  has  none  other. 
Of  the  Z'is  iucrtia:  he  made  a  creed  —  and  it  was  a 
mark  of  genius  to  have  conceived  so  simple  an  idea. 
In  fact  it  was  to  understand  people  who  did  not 
understand  themselves.  "  To  be  the  founder  of  a 
religion  one  must  have  psychological  infallibility  in 
the  discovery  of  a  class  of  average  souls  that  have 
not  yet  recogniacd  that  they  ivere  of  the  same  kind." 
These  souls  are  united  by  the  founder  of  religion. 
This  is  why  the  founding  of  a  religion  becomes 
always  a  long  feast  of  thanksgiving. 

Thus  created  and  organized,  such  religion  is  trans- 
mitted by  habit  and  heredity.  It  is  proved  and  con- 
firmed by   the   acts  of   very   real   courage   that   it 


56  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

prompts.  Since  thus  strength  is  born  out  of  weak- 
ness or  seems  to  be  born,  rehgion  wields  at  length 
over  the  imagination  the  influence  and  prestige  of 
moral  force.  But  do  we  need  to  say  that  martyr- 
dom proves  nothing?  It  proves,  if  you  like,  and 
even  this  could  be  contested,  that  some  one  is  very 
much  convinced.  But  conviction  is  no  proof  of 
truth,  although,  to  be  sure,  it  is  no  proof  of  error, 
Yet  it  presumes  error  since  we  see  very  well,  and  all 
the  time  that  the  more  man  is  intelligent,  the  less  he 
asserts,  and  since,  therefore,  a  man  who  is  suffi- 
ciently affirmative  to  die  for  his  affirmation  may  be 
presumed  to  have  an  energetic  will,  a  fiery  passion, 
but  a  narrow  mind.  The  martyrs,  therefore,  proved 
nothing  at  all,  but  they  bewitch,  they  hearten  and 
they  intoxicate.  They  are  necessary  to  the  develop- 
ment of  religion  and  they  are  the  true  pillars  almost 
unshakable  of  the  temple.  "  It  is  so  little  true  to 
say  that  a  martyr  could  prove  the  truth  of  anything 
that  I  should  like  to  affirm  that  no  martyr  ever  had 
anything  to  do  with  truth.  .  .  ,  The  sufferings  of 
the  martyrs  have  been  a  great  historical  misfortune : 
they  have  bewitched.  Is  the  cross  then  an  argu- 
ment ?  " 

Thus  religion  is  born  of  human  weakness.  It  is 
organized  by  the  skill,  sincere  withal  and  even  un- 
conscious, of  clever  psychologists.  It  is  strength- 
ened and  confirmed  by  solemn  and  striking  acts  of 
confession,  devotion  and  sacrifice.  Thus  does  a  reli- 
gion extend  its  influence  over  a  section  of  humanity. 
What  destroys  it  is  the  coming  forth  of  another 
religion  that  corresponds  to  a  new  state  of  mind 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:      RELIGION         57 

but  always  to  a  state  of  weakness  on  the  part  of 
humanity  or  of  a  portion  of  humanity.  The  "  reU- 
gion  of  human  sorrow  "  for  instance,  which  is  but  a 
form  of  the  *'  reHgion  of  humanity,"  tends  nowadays 
to  substitute  itself  for  the  others.  It  matters  not 
whether  or  not  it  has  a  chance  of  survival.  It  is  but 
an  example  of  the  way  in  which  religions  attempt  to 
establish  themselves.  This  religion  of  pity  —  what 
is  it?  First  of  all  it  is  a  remnant  of  Christianity. 
To  be  sure.  That  is  necessary  since  a  new  religion 
must  correspond  to  a  general  state  of  mind  and  even 
identify  itself  with  the  general  state  of  mind,  reli- 
giously conceived,  and  since  there  must  be  remnants 
of  Christianity  in  the  prevalent  state  of  mind  about 
the  year  1880,  then  this  new  religion  is  a  negation  of 
Christianity  in  relation  to  the  decrepit  paths  of 
Christianity.  It  appeals  no  longer  to  God,  seems  no 
longer  to  think  of  God  at  all.  Perhaps  it  does  not 
believe  in  Him.  It  rejects  the  idea  of  justice  and 
the  idea  of  State.  It  rejects  the  idea  of  authority 
and  that  of  hierarchy ;  all  ideas  which  had  been,  at 
least,  accepted  by  Christianity,  It  is,  therefore, 
partly  a  remnant  of  Christianity  and  partly  a  re- 
action against  Christianity,  as  Christianity  had  been 
partly  a  remnant  of  Judaism  and  partly  a  reaction 
against  Judaism.  Finally  it  rests  upon  human  weak- 
ness, it  makes  an  appeal  to  it  and  divinizes  it.  It 
corresponds  to  the  state  of  lassitude  of  Europe  over- 
burdened with  wars,  invasion  and  armed  peace,  and 
it  makes  a  virtue  of  this  lassitude.  It  says :  "  Never 
any  shedding  of  blood,  never  any  war  even  a  just 
one:  let  pity  stop  and  suppress  carnage."     After 


58  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

all,  it  amounts  to  saying  :  "  You  are  cowards. 
Very  well,  I  am  going  to  reveal  to  you  a  divine  se- 
cret which  will  please  you :  you  are  right." 

This  is  the  way  in  which  a  new  religion  attempts 
to  destroy  an  ancient  religion,  and  sometimes  suc- 
ceeds. We  have  there  the  three  necessary  condi- 
tions that  are  sometimes  sufficient  conditions  for  a 
new  religion  to  destroy  another  and  establish  itself 
in  its  stead. 

But  who  can  destroy  all  the.  religions  without  put- 
ting another  one  in  the  place  of  the  last?  One  thing 
only,  and  it  is,  in  truth,  very  difficult.  It  is  the  de- 
struction of  the  supernatural,  the  energetic  affirma- 
tion that  the  supernatural  does  not  exist ;  it  is  the 
challenge  for  any  one  to  prove  that  the  supernatural 
does  exist.  The  first  thing  that  the  prophet  of 
the  future  must  cry  out  is :  "  God  is  dead.  I  am 
telling  you  in  truth  a  true  fact:  God  is  dead." 
That  was  the  first  word  of  Zarathustra.  One  must 
assert  with  energy  that  God  no  longer  exists. 

When  that  idea  took  hold  of  Nietzsche  he  pushed 
it  so  far  that  he  forgot  one  of  his  favorite  theories, 
that  is  that  the  world  is  a  manifestation  of  beauty. 
For  this  theory  may  lead  to  God,  to  a  God,  to  some- 
thing theological :  it  contains  something  divine.  If 
the  world  is  a  manifestation  of  beauty,  it  entails  the 
existence  of  an  artist ;  it  may  be  above  it  or  it  may 
be  below  it  or  it  may  be  in  it  but  still  somewhere  or 
else  it  entails  the  world  itself  to  be  an  artist,  the 
artist  of  itself.  Even  in  this  there  is  too  much  that 
is  divine.     Therefore  when  Nietzsche  warms  up  in 


CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES:      RELIGION         59 

atheism,  he  denies  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  we 
must  acknowledge  that  he  cannot  do  anything  else : 
'*  The  general  condition  of  the  world  is  chaos  for  all 
eternity  not  through  lack  of  a  necessity  but  in  the 
sense  of  a  lack  of  order,  of  structure,  of  form,  of 
beaiitx,  of  wisdom,  whatever  may  be  the  names  of 
our  human  a^stheticians.  ...  It  is  neither  perfect 
nor  beautiful  nor  lofty  and  wishes  to  become  neither 
of  these.  It  does  not  tend  at  all  to  an  imitation  of 
man.  It  is  not  touched  by  any  of  our  aesthetic  and 
moral  judgements.  .  .  ." 

God  is  dead :  but  take  care,  there  remain  shadows 
of  God.  After  the  death  of  Buddha  there  still 
showed  for  centuries  his  shadow  in  a  cavern,  a  huge 
and  fearful  shadow.  "  God  is  dead  but  to  judge 
from  the  ways  of  mankind  there  may  yet  be  for 
thousands  of  years  caverns  where  they  will  show 
His  shadow." 

These  shadows  of  God  are  precisely  the  beliefs 
in  something  intelligent  about  the  universe,  in  some- 
thing either  beautiful,  as  we  have  seen,  or  orderly 
or  intentional.  Metaphysics  is  a  shadow  of  the 
supernatural ;  the  simple  humanization  of  the  uni- 
verse is  a  shadow  of  the  supernatural ;  the  simple 
and  more  or  less  firm  belief  that  the  universe  means 
anything  at  all  is  a  shadow  of  the  supernatural.  To 
understand  the  universe  is  to  believe  in  God;  to 
think  that  one  understands  it  is  to  believe  in  God ; 
to  try  to  understand  it  is  still  to  believe  in  God.  To 
suppose  that  the  universe  is  intelligible  is  to  be  a 
theist  even  when  one  believes  one's  self  to  be  an 


60  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

atheist.  A  deep  thought  this  which  Nietzsche 
grasps  very  clearly  to  its  end  with  the  clearest  sight 
that  he  ever  had. 

Let  us  therefore  dispel  these  shadows  of  God. 
Let  us  take  care  not  to  believe  that  the  universe  is 
intelligible.  Let  us  beware  of  all  the  hypotheses  by 
which  we  try  to  explain  it  to  ourselves.  "  Let  us 
beware  (pantheism  for  instance)  to  think  that  the 
world  is  a  living  being.  How  should  it  develop  it- 
self? On  what  could  it  subsist?  How  could  it 
succeed  in  increasing  and  growing?  We  know 
pretty  nearly  what  organized  matter  is  and  we 
ought  to  change  the  meaning  of  all  that  there  is  un- 
speakably derived,  belated,  rare  and  haphazard,  of 
what  we  perceive  on  the  earth's  crust  to  make  of  it 
something  essential,  general  and  eternal.  Yet  that 
is  what  those  do  that  call  the  universe  an  organism. 
That  is  disgusting  to  me."  Without  going  quite  so 
far,  "  let  us  take  care  also  not  to  consider  the  uni- 
verse a  machine.  It  certainly  was  not  constructed 
with  any  aim  in  view :  and  by  using  the  word  ma- 
chine we  do  it  much  too  great  an  honor.  Let  us 
take  care  not  to  admit  for  certain  everywhere  and 
in  a  general  fashion  something  definite  like  the  cyclic 
movement  of  the  constellations  that  are  nearer  to 
us :  one  glance  at  the  milky  way  already  awakens 
one's  doubts,  leads  one  to  believe  that  there  may  be 
there  motions  which  are  much  coarser  and  more  con- 
tradictory (than  those  of  the  solar  system)  and  also 
stars  that  are  precipitated  as  if  in  a  straight  line 
forward.  The  astral  order  in  which  we  live  is  an 
exception.     That  order  as  also  the  passing  duration 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES  I      RELIGION         6l 

which  is  its  condition  has  itself  rendered  possible  the 
exception  to  the  exceptions  :  the  formation  of  what  is 
organic.  .  .  .  Let  us  beware  again  from  saying  that 
there  are  lazvs  in  nature.  There  are  but  necessities. 
Nobody  there  that  commands,  no  one  that  obeys,  no 
one  that  infringes.  When*  you  have  learned  that 
there  are  no  aims  you  shall  know  also  that  there  is 
no  hazard ;  for  it  is  only  by  the  side  of  a  world  of 
aims  that  the  word  '  hacard  '  has  any  meaning.  Let 
us  beware  again  from  saying  that  death  is  opposed 
to  life.  Life  is  but  a  variety  of  death  and  a  very 
scarce  variety  at  that.  Let  us  beware  .  .  .  but 
when  shall  we  ever  reach  the  end  of  our  bewares 
and  cautions?  When  \\\\\  all  these  shadows  of  God 
cease  to  trouble  us  ?  When  shall  we  have  altogether 
stripped  nature  of  its  divine  attributes?  This  brings 
us  back  to  asking:  when  shall  we  have  done  with 
humanizing  nature  ?  " 

Religions  and  also  metaphysics,  these  reflections 
of  religions,  will  only  disappear  when  man  becomes 
able  to  understand,  to  see  something  as  different 
from  himself.  But  that  is  what  he  has  not  yet  come 
to  do,  what  he  cannot  do :  "  We  do  but  operate 
with  things  which  do  not  exist,  with  lines,  surfaces, 
atoms,  divisible  periods  and  divisible  spaces.  How 
could  an  interpretation  be  possible  if  of  everything 
we  first  of  all  make  an  image,  our  image?  We  are 
still  considering  science  as  a  humanization  of  things 
as  faithful  as  can  be.  In  describing  things  and  their 
succession  we  learn  merely  to  describe  ourselves 
ever  more  exactly.  .  .  ." 

So  long  as  man  shall  sec  and  know  but  himself 


62  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

and  so  long  as  he  can  tinder  the  pretext  of  explain- 
ing things  but  transform  them  into  himself  he  shall 
be  dominated  by  religions  and  metaphysics,  which 
are  born  of  his  physical  weakness  and  kept  up  by  his 
moral  weakness. 

See  in  one  example  the  weakness  inherent  to  the 
metaphysical  beliefs  and  the  weakness  which  derives 
front  it.  Men  have  long  believed  in  the  immortality 
of  the  human  soul.  "  The  will  to  power,"  one  could 
say  to  Nietzsche,  a  powerful  and  intense  desire  to 
live  ever  and  ever  more,  the  dream  of  an  Olympian 
or  of  a  being  who  wishes  to  be  Olympian.  That 
is  possible,  Nietzsche  would  answer,  for  the  will  to 
power  also  has  its  errors.  But  this  is  a  false  will  to 
power,  and,  at  bottom,  it  is  but  a  weakness,  the 
horror  and  the  fear  of  death,  and  it  generates  a 
perhaps  more  serious  weakness  which  is  this.  With 
the  belief  in  an  immortal  soul  man  is  compelled  to 
take  before  his  death  a  decision,  a  side,  since  on  the 
side  that  he  shall  choose  shall  his  salvation  depend. 
Look  at  Pascal,  The  result  is  an  extreme  timor- 
ousness  that  prevents  knowledge  from  advancing 
and  causes  man  to  hold  himself  in  fear  as  on  the 
threshold  of  knowledge :  "  The  most  useful  con- 
quest that  perhaps  has  ever  been  made  was  the  re- 
nouncing of  the  belief  in  an  immortal  soul.  Human- 
ity has  now  the  right  to  wait.  It  need  no  longer 
hurry  and  accept  ill-examined  ideas  as  it  had  to  do 
previously.  For  in  those  days,  the  salvation  of  the 
poor  immortal  soul  being  dependent  upon  its  con- 
victions during  a  short  life,  it  had  to  decide  in  a  day, 
and  knowledge  had  a  terrifying  importance.     We 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:      RELIGION         63 

have  reconquered  the  good  courage  to  err,  to  at- 
tempt, to  take  for  the  time  being.  All  that  is  now 
of  lesser  consequence.  And,  precisely  because  of 
this,  individuals  and  whole  generations  may  now 
face  tasks  so  imposing  that  they  would  have  ap- 
peared to  be  folly  in  the  days  gone  by,  and  seemed 
an  impious  game  with  heaven  and  hell.  We  have 
the  right  to  make  experiments  with  ourselves.  Even 
the  whole  of  humanity  has  that  right." 

Among  all  these  religions  and  metaphysics  there  is 
one  that  Nietzsche  pursues  with  a  beloved  hatred. 
One  can  even  surmise  that  it  is  because  of  that  one 
that  he  hates  them  all,  and  this  invites  us  attentively 
to  follow  him  upon  that  ground.  This  religion  is 
Christianity.  For  Nietzsche  —  and  we  have  come 
to  those  ideas  of  Nietzsche  that  are  the  most  just 
in  the  main  if  not  in  all  the  consequences  that  he 
derives  from  them  —  for  Nietzsche  Christianity  is 
nothing  else  but  one  of  the  events  and  the  most  con- 
siderable and  decisive  one  of  plebeianism.  It  is 
because  of  it  that  he  sees  in  it  the  most  hateful  and 
redoubtable  enemy,  the  eternal  obstacle  to  his  gen- 
eral ideas.  Christianity  is  the  advent  of  plebeian- 
ism. 

It  was  prepared  by  Socrates  and  by  Plato  who, 
whatever  may  have  been  their  political  ideas,  ac- 
customed the  minds  to  consider  all  things  from  the 
point  of  view  of  morality,  sub  specie  ethices  and 
have  also  fostered  the  custom  of  despising 
and  denying  the  right  of  the  strong,  the  right  of  the 
best,  and  of  wanting  all  men  to  be  submitted  to  one 
single  rule. 


64  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

It  was  prepared  by  Buddhism  or  by  infiltrations  of 
Buddhism,  the  first  plebeian  religion  to  call  all 
men  equally  to  its  bosom  and  to  its  faith  that  the 
world  seems  to  have  known.  It  was  prepared  (this 
Nietzsche  seems  to  have  forgotten  completely  or 
passed  under  silence)  by  the  Hebrew  prophets,  for 
that  was  a  movement  formally  popular,  plebeian, 
democratic  and  equalitarian. 

All  these  "  preparations  "  are  execrable  but  Chris- 
tianity is  yet  more  execrable  than  everything  that 
prepared  it.  We  know  how  it  was  born :  everything 
that  was  low,  vile,  tired  and  social  waste  and  social 
decadence  was  called  upon  to  consider  itself  as  holy, 
as  divine,  as  "  living  member  of  God  "  and  to  despise 
everything  that  was  alive,  energetic,  beautiful  and 
noble,  everything  that  had  the  wealth  of  life  and 
beauty. 

"  Christianity  is  the  religion  proper  for  aged 
antiquity.  As  first  conditions  of  survival  it  has 
needed  ancient  degenerated  civilizations  upon  which 
it  knew  how  to  act  and  upon  which  it  acted  like  a 
balm.  At  the  periods  when  the  eyes  and  the  ears 
are  *  full  of  dust '  to  the  extent  that  they  no  longer 
perceive  the  voice  of  reason  and  philosophy,  that 
they  hear  no  longer  the  living  and  personified  wis- 
dom whether  it  bears  the  name  of  Epictetus  or 
Epicurus,  the  erected  cross  of  the  martyrs  and  the 
trumpet  of  the  last  judginent  will  probably  suffice  to 
produce  an  effect  that  will  induce  such  peoples  to 
make  a  decent  ending.  Think  of  the  Rome  of  Juve- 
nal, that  venomous  toad  with  the  eyes  of  Venus,  and 
you  will  understand  what  it  means  to  erect  a  cross 


CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES :      RELIGION         65 

before  the  world.  .  .  .  Most  men  were  bom  in  those 
days  with  satiated  souls  and  with  the  senses  of  an 
old  man.  What  boon  was  it  for  them  to  meet  those 
beings  who  were  more  souls  than  bodies  and  seemed 
to  realize  that  Greek  idea  of  the  Shades  of  the 
Hades  1  This  Christianity  considered  as  the  knell 
of  the  good  antiquity,  sounded  on  a  bell,  tired  and 
broken,  yet  retaining  a  melodious  sound,  this  Chris- 
tianity even  for  the  man  who  to-day  skims  those  cen- 
turies merely  from  the  historical  point  of  view,  is 
a  balm  to  the  ear.  What  then  may  it  not  have  been 
for  the  men  of  that  time !  On  the  other  hand  Chris- 
tianity is  a  jioison  for  young  barbaric  nations.  To 
plant,  for  instance,  the  doctrine  of  sin  and  damnation 
in  the  souls  of  the  old  Germans,  these  heroic, 
childish  and  bestial  souls,  what  was  it  but  to  poison 
them?  The  consequence  of  all  this  was  a  formid- 
able fermentation,  and  a  chemical  decomposition,  a 
disorder  of  feelings  and  of  decision,  a  pressure  and 
an  exuberance  of  the  most  dangerous  things ;  and 
later  a  thorough  weakening  of  those  barbaric  na- 
tions." 

Such  was  the  first  nature,  the  first  complexion  of 
Christianity :  divinized  gentleness,  divinized  weak- 
ness, humility,  submission  and  platitude  divinized. 
Hence  the  two  perpetual  hostilities  of  Christianity: 
hostility  to  life  and  hostility  to  art.  Christianity  has 
had  at  all  times  a  raging  and  vindictive  r('])ugnance 
"towards  life  itself."  ...  It  was  **  from  the  outset, 
essentially  and  radically,  a  satiety  of  life  and  a  dis- 
gust with  life;  feelings  that  only  masquerade  and 
hide  under  the  disguise  of  faith  in  another  and  bet- 


66  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

ter  life."  Is  it  not  evident  that  any  doctrine  that 
appeals  to  another  life,  condemns  this  present  life, 
complains  of  it  and  curses  it,  invites  one  either  to 
leave  it,  or  to  wish  to  get  away  from  it  or  to  reduce 
it  to  its  minimum?  Hence,  in  the  Christian  doc- 
trine, one  finds  eternally  the  "  hatred  of  the  world," 
the  "  anathema  to  the  passions,  the  dread  of  beauty 
and  pleasure,  a  future  beyond,  which  was  invented 
the  better  to  disparage  the  present,  a  background,  a 
desire  of  nothingness,  of  death,  of  rest  until  the  sab- 
bath of  the  sabbaths." 

Witness  St,  Paul  "  that  Jewish  Pascal "  as  Pas- 
cal was  a  Christian  Paul ;  see  this  puny,  sickly  man, 
this  epileptic,  perhaps  this  ex-criminal,  in  all  cer- 
tainty this  ex-slave  to  violent  passions.  What  he 
seeks  is  the  abolition  of  sin  within  himself  through 
an  intimate  union  with  his  God,  that  is  he  seeks  to 
cause  life  to  disappear  in  death  which  is  a  new  and 
the  only  desirable  hfe.  No  "  will  to  power,"  no 
"  will  do  dominate  "  is  as  formidable,  since  every 
effort  is  will  to  power.  But  where  does  this  effect 
lead  ?  Straight  to  death,  to  actual  death  which  is  a 
necessary  and  beloved  condition  of  real  life.  "  To 
death!  —  To  Glory!"  the  Polyeucte  of  Corneille 
says  magnificently  and  most  exactly.  To  glory 
through  death,  is  the  very  motto  of  the  Christian. 

A  necessary  sequel  is  that  Christianity  feels  a  con- 
stant and  incurable  hostility  towards  beauty  and 
art.  One  might  begin  by  saying  that  what  is  hos- 
tile to  life  is  almost  forcibly  hostile  to  art  since  "  all 
life  rests  upon  appearance,  art  and  illusion  "  and 
upon  faith  in  an  illusion  considered  beautiful,  se- 


CRITICISING    THE   OBSTACLES  :      RELIGION         (fj 

ductive  and  strengthening.  Without  going  so  far, 
Christianity  is  hostile  to  art,  because  it  admits  noth- 
ing but  that  which  is  strictly  moral  and  aims  at 
morality  as  its  end.  This  excludes  art  or  subordi- 
nates it  and  thus  degrades  it  and  by  degrading  it, 
kills  it.  If  we  take  up  the  hypothesis  of  the  ex- 
planation and  justification  of  the  world  by  its  beauty, 
an  hypothesis  which,  as  we  know,  Nietzsche  has 
sometimes  found  pleasant,  "  nothing  is  more  com- 
pletely opposed  to  the  interpretation  and  the  purely 
aesthetic  justification  of  the  world  than  the  Christian 
doctrine  which  is  and  wants  to  be  nothing  else  but 
morality  and  which,  with  its  absolute  principles,  as 
for  instance,  its  veracity  of  God,  relegates  art,  all 
art,  into  the  dominion  of  lies  and  therefore  denies, 
condemns  and  curses  it." 

Christianity  rejects  the  whole  of  art.  It  is  neither 
"  Apollonian  nor  Dionysian.  It  denies  all  aesthetic 
values ;  it  is  nihilistic  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
word."  To  its  shame  and  condemnation,  there  is 
this  difference  between  what  prepared  it  and  itself 
that  Socratism  subordinated  art  to  morality,  and 
considered  that  art  as  all  the  other  sides  of  human 
work  should  tend  towards  morality  as  its  final  goal. 
Upon  this  ground  then  it  still  admitted  art  or  thought 
it  did ;  it  enervated  art  but  did  not  proscribe  it  or 
thought  it  did  not.  But  Christianity  proscribes  art 
and,  being  most  intelligent,  fears  it  as  its  mortal,  that 
is,  living,  enemy.  So  soon  as  a  Christian  is  intelli- 
gent and  deep,  so  soon  as  he  understands  Christian- 
ity (Luther,  Calvin,  Pascal,  de  Maistre),  he  pro- 
scribes art.     So  soon  as  a  Christian  understands  half 


68  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

or  more  of  Christianity,  he  reduces  art  to  be  a 
modest  and  servile  auxihary  of  morahty :  (Tolstoy). 
So  soon  as  a  Christian,  albeit  sincere,  is  but  a  super- 
ficial, recent,  accidental  and  somewhat  deliberate 
Christian,  and  withal  understands  it  not  at  all,  he 
aims  at  wedding  art  to  Christianity:  (Chateau- 
briand). 

At  heart,  the  Christian  is  a  man  of  death,  of 
sepulchral  shadows,  a  lover  of  death.  Look  about 
yourselves.  Christians  are  in  love  with  death;  the 
men  and  women  whom  their  natural  tendency  leads 
to  a  taste  for  death  have  a  sort  of  natural  disposi- 
tion to  be  Christians.  The  Christian  priests  are 
"  the  most  repulsive  species  of  dwarfs,"  and  "  crea- 
tures of  the  underground." 

This  doctrine  has  renewed  human  nature.  It  is 
quite  conscious  of  that  fact  and  justly  boasts  of  it. 
But  it  has  falsified  human  nature.  It  has  created 
new  feelings  that  are  most  anti-human.  Nietzsche 
applies  to  Christianity  the  same  reproach,  or  a  very 
similar  one,  which  Christianity  addressed  to  Stoi- 
cism. Christianity  taxed  Stoicism  with  a  pretence 
of  suppressing  passions  instead  of  skilfully  direct- 
ing them.  Nietzsche  taxes  Christianity  with  having 
also  pretended  to  suppress  the  passions  or  with 
having,  by  diverting  them  from  their  purposes,  made 
them  more  evil  and  also  more  attractive  and  corrup- 
tive. Christianity  aimed  at  suppressing  ambition, 
which  is  the  best  and  most  natural  of  human  in- 
stincts, which  is  in  fact,  the  "  Will  to  Power."  But 
the  will  to  power  was  merely  diverted  from  its 
course.     It  took  its  revenge  and  became  the  will 


CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES:      REUGION         69 

to  conquer  Heaven.  It  threw  man  back  into  the 
strife,  moreover,  which  was  more  cruel  and  bitter 
than  that  of  ambition  proper,  in  the  strife  with 
himself  and  "  the  world."  Through  it  man  has  be- 
come rough,  violent,  sad  and  wretchedly  unhappy. 
This  follows  the  desire  to  suppress  a  passion,  the 
substitution  of  one  passion  for  another  and  the  sub- 
stitution, for  a  good  passion,  of  a  bad  one,  or  for 
a  bad  passion,  of  a  worse  one. 

The  Christians  have  aimed  at  suppressing  love; 
they  wanted  it  considered  as  a  fatal  passion,  as  an 
enemy.  Very  well.  But  "  the  passions  become  evil 
and  perfidious  zvhen  we  consider  them  in  an  evil  and 
perfidious  fashion."  The  Christians  have  turned 
Eros  and  Aphrodite  into  Genii  from  Hell,  into  lying 
Spirits.  First  of  all  it  is  doubtful  that  what  has 
been  created  with  a  view  to  propagating  the  species  ' 
could  be  deceitful  and  fatal  in  itself.  Then  it  is  a 
sign  of  vulgarity,  it  is  proper  to  the  most  vulgar 
souls  ever  to  consider  their  enemies  as  bad  and  evil. 
We  must  pay  attention  to  this.  An  enemy  if  you 
like.  But  to  have  an  enemy  is  necessary  to  life,  to 
any  life,  and  the  creature  whom  we  could  conceive 
to  be  without  an  enemy  should  be  a  very  unfortunate 
and  a  very  low  being,  very  close  to  the  non-being. 
—  Finally  and  especially,  by  turning  love  into  both 
a  sin  and  a  mysterious  and  redoubtable  enemy,  Chris- 
tianity has  poetized  it,  divinized  it  and  turned  it  into 
a  seductive  joy  of  which  one  dreams  with  a  blend  of 
delight  and  shudders  and  of  which  therefore  one 
dreams  for  ever.  Therefore  in  aiming  at  the  de- 
struction of  love,  Christianity  created  it:     "This 


70  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

diabolization  of  Eros  ends  in  comedy:  Eros,  the 
demon.,  has,  little  by  little,  become  more  interesting 
than  angels  and  saints,  thanks  to  the  whisperings 
and  mysterious  little  ways  of  the  Church  in  all 
things  erotic.  It  is  due  to  the  Church  that  love  af- 
fairs have  become  the  one  interest  truly  common  to 
all  centres  and  this  with  an  exaggeration  which 
would  have  been  unintelligible  to  the  antiquity  and 
which  no  doubt  will  some  day  cause  people  to  laugh. 
The  whole  of  our  poetry,  high  and  low,  is  marked 
and  more  than  marked  by  the  diffuse  importance  it 
gives  to  love  which  it  always  presents  as  the  princi- 
pal event.  Because  of  this  judgment  it  may  well  be 
that  posterity  will  find  in  the  whole  inheritance  of 
civilization  something  shabby  and  insane." 

Christianity  has  therefore  renovated  human  na- 
ture by  falsifying,  altering,  degrading  and  corrupt- 
ing it.  In  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  Christianity 
is  corruptive. 

It  is  dead,  they  say,  and  the  comments  which  we 
have  made  have  but  an  historical  interest.  Do  not 
let  us  delude  ourselves.  In  the  same  way  as  "  God 
is  dead  "  but  left  "  shadows  "  behind,  these  meta- 
physical shadows  of  which  we  have  spoken,  and  of 
which  humanity  may  not  be  able  to  rid  itself  for 
thousands  of  years,  in  that  same  way,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  see  what  shadows  Christianity  also  has  left 
behind.  Christianity  has  said :  "  Save  yourselves 
through  faith,"  and  upon  these  words,  "  dogma " 
was  founded.  But  it  said  also :  "  Love  ye  each 
other;  love  your  neighbor  as  yourself;  love  your 
'  enemy '  " ;  and  upon  these  words  was  Christian 


CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES :      RELIGION         7I 

morality  established.  Little  by  little  the  dogma  fell 
down  but  morality  took  the  foreground.  Note  that 
it  came  there  as  the  dogma  fell  down.  The  more 
the  dogma  was  relegated  into  oblivion,  the  more  one 
felt  bound  in  honour  to  practice  and  especially  to 
extol  morality,  to  prove  how  one  could  be  virtuous 
without  being  Christian.  There  are  atheists  whose 
chief  moral  incentive  is  their  very  atheism,  so  anx- 
ious are  they  to  prove  that  an  atheist  may  be  a  good 
man  and  to  what  extent  he  may  be  one.  The  trou- 
ble is  that  if  one  detaches  one's  self  from  Christian- 
ity in  that  way,  one  becomes  more  Christian  than 
ever  and  more  than  ever  a  propagandist  and  vul- 
garizer  of  the  Christian  idea.  This  shadow  of 
Christianity,  is  Christianity  still  hovering  above  the 
world.  This  residue  of  Christianity  is  the  essence 
thereof. 

Watch  w-ell  the  sequence  of  things :  "  The  more 
one  parted  from  the  dogmas,  the  more,  in  a  way, 
one  sought  the  justification  of  that  parting  in  a  cult 
of  love  for  humanity.  The  secret  stimulus  of  the 
French  free  thinkers  from  Voltaire  down  to  Auguste 
Comte  was,  not  to  remain  behind  the  Christian  ideal 
on  this  point  but  to  outbid  it  if  possible.  Auguste 
Comte,  with  his  well-known  moral  formula  '  to  live 
for  others  '  in  fact  out  Christianizes  Cliristianity. 
In  Germany  it  was  Schopenhauer,  and  in  England 
John  Stuart  Mill,  who  gave  the  greatest  fame  to  the 
theory  of  sympathetic  affections,  of  pity  and  of  use- 
fulness to  others  as  the  principle  of  action.  Rut 
they  themselves  were  mere  echoes.  These  doctrines 
arose  everywhere  at  the  same  time  under  forms  that 


'J2  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

were  either  subtle  or  coarse,  and  with  extraordinary 
vitality,  since  about  the  time  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  all  the  systems  of  Sociahsm  placed  them- 
selves unwittingly  as  it  were  upon  the  common 
ground  of  these  doctrines.  .  .  ." 

Such  are  the  residues  of  Christianity,  which  it  is 
necessary  to  burn  down  and  such  are  the  shadows  of 
Christianity,  which  must  necessarily  be  dispelled. 

To  resume,  the  religions  and  also  the  metaphysics, 
which  are  but  pale  reflections  of  the  religions,  are 
born  of  human  weakness.  They  are  always  adopted 
and  grasped  by  the  weak  in  order  to  repress  and,  if 
possible,  to  enslave  the  strong.  They  succeed  first 
in  repressing  them  and  then  in  enslaving  them. 
Sometimes  even  they  succeed  in  seducing  them.  As 
a  result,  penetrated  by  these  reflections  and  the 
shadows,  they  themselves  repress  themselves,  enslave 
themselves  and  by  consecrating  their  strength  to  the 
cause  of  the  weak,  they  destroy  strength. —  Reli- 
gions and  Metaphysics  and  all  the  dreams  of  the 
supernatural  in  general  are  therefore  auxiHaries  of 
death,  enemies  of  life  and  beauty,  and  betrayals  and 
degradations  of  human  race.  At  all  events,  they 
are  again  obstacles  to  the  Nietzschean  conception  of 
life. 


CHAPTER  VL 

CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES: 
RATIONALISM  AND  SCIENCE. 

What  then,  if  we  were  to  turn  to  what  generally 
passes  for  the  antithesis,  the  antipode  and  the  an- 
tagonism of  rehgion  and  metaphysics,  if  we  turned 
to  science  ?  —  Let  ns  see. 

Science  is  first  of  all  the  savants.  A  somewhat 
sorry  crowd.  They  are  timid,  fusty,  sad  and  short- 
sighted, wonderful  when  it  comes  to  not  seeing  the 
world,  to  not  appreciating  men,  to  not  knowing  what 
man  is,  also  to  not  knowing  either  the  principles, 
origins  and  foundations  nor  the  end,  the  importance 
and  the  consequences  of  the  very  science  they  are 
studying.  Often  enough  they  are  superstitious  and 
dogmatic  in  their  superstitions  and  prejudices  be- 
cause, knowing  exactly  what  effectively  they  know, 
they  bring  to  the  expression  of  their  prejudices  the 
strictness  and  imperiousness  of  the  formulas  of  their 
laboratories  and  studies.  They  are  good  workmen 
of  knowledge  who,  when  all  is  said,  know  nothing 
at  all,  as  the  workers  in  a  factory  are  strangers  to 
the  work  it  turns  out  ultimately.  They  are  average 
in  all  things,  an  intermediate  class  between  the  mob 
and  the  elite,  and  have  neither  the  qualities  of  tbe 
one  nor  even  the  qualities  that  are  attributed  to 
the  other.     Most  of  them  are  moreover  infatuated 

73 


74  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

with  their  vainglorious  timorousness  and  number 
more  pedants  than  any  other  class  of  society  and 
even  of  the  human  species. —  Nietzsche  always 
speaks  of  the  savant  as  a  professor  that  fled  from 
the  profession.     Let  us  pass  on. 

Science  itself,  apart  from  its  practical  usefulness, 
to  which  men  may,  if  they  care  to,  attach  some  im- 
portance, is  but  a  very  great  sham.  It  was  invented, 
about  four  hundred  years  before  Christ,  by  Soc- 
rates, whatever  he  may  have  said  or  perhaps 
thought.  What  existed  before  Socrates,  or  at  best 
what  held  the  first  rank  and  enjoyed  precedence  was 
the  intuitive  man,  who,  in  his  highest  expression, 
was  the  artist  and  the  poet.  What  existed  after 
Socrates,  or  at  least  what  took  primacy  in  the  mind 
of  men,  in  the  consideration  of  men,  was  the  theori- 
cal  man,  that  is  to  say  the  reasoning  man  who  must 
know  in  order  to  reason,  who  therefore  learns  and 
classifies  and  criticises  and  who,  upon  the  gathered 
data,  builds  up  deductions  and  theories,  in  a  word 
the  savant  and  the  rationalist. 

But  this  man  also  is  a  mortal  enemy  of  art  and 
life.  He  also  is  as  anti-Dionysian  as  can  be.  Soc- 
rates is  well  enough  known  for  an  anti-artist  and 
Plato  wished  to  banish  the  poets  from  the  Republic : 
"  The  most  illustrious  antagonist  of  the  tragic  (that 
is  the  artistic)  conception  of  the  Universe,  is  Sci- 
ence. Art  causes  life  to  be  loved  by  presenting 
it  a  synthetic  fashion ;  science  discolors  it  and  freezes 
it  by  analyzing  it.  Science  kills  what  art  had  vivi- 
fied. Whoever  is  prepared  to  dwell  upon  the  most 
immediate   consequences   of   this   scientific    spirit, 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE  75 

whoever  goes  relentlessly  forward,  will  understand 
at  once  how  through  it  '  the  myth  was  put  out 
of  existence,  and  how,  through  this  annihilation 
poetry,  disjx)ssessed  of  its  natural  ideal  birthplace, 
was  compelled  henceforth  to  wander  like  a  homeless 
vagabond.'  " 

Socrates  it  was  who  truly  built  piecemeal  that 
theorical  man.  He  did  it  by  his  doctrine  which  was 
singularly  deep  in  the  sense  that  it  went  straight  out 
to  the  end  of  the  initial  thought,  but  his  radically 
false  doctrine  was  that  morality  is  in  proportion 
to  knowledge,  that  the  man  that  does  not  do  good  is 
a  man  that  does  not  know  the  good  and  that  the  man 
that  knows  the  good  does  assuredly  do  it.  Here  it 
is  precisely,  the  theorical  man  introduced  as  king 
of  the  world!  Now  nothing  is  more  false  than  this 
notion.  The  opposite  is  more  likely  to  be  true.  The 
man  that  knows  the  good  does  not  do  it,  because  he 
is  satisfied  with  knowing  it  and  that  is  enough  for 
his  conceit  and  because,  knowing  the  good  and  know- 
ing that  he  knows  it,  he  fancies  that  he  is  doing  it 
and  that  he  has  accomplished  and  fulfilled  his  duty. 
The  good  is  instinctive  and  passionate ;  the  good  is 
in  the  action  and  the  action  is,  we  must  admit,  rarely 
inspired  by  the  idea  and  by  knowledge.  It  is  fre- 
quently, one  must  admit,  the  effect  of  an  instinctive 
and  unconscious  movement. 

Yet  this  thought  is  truly  the  fundamental  or  cor- 
ner stone  of  the  doctrine  of  the  theoretical  man. 
Socrates  said  to  the  world  :  "  Know,  think  and  rea- 
son. To  know  is  to  have  the  power  to  do  the  good. 
Know,  think  and  reason  for  that  is  the  whole  of 


76  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

man.  The  rest  belongs  to  childhood." —  He  should 
have  said :     "  Follow  your  instincts  ;  they  are  good." 

It  really  seems  as  if  Socrates,  who  was  a  mistaken 
but  a  truly  inspired  man,  understood  all  that  he 
taught  and  that  is  indeed  a  rare  thing.  The  final 
word  and  ultimate  meaning  of  his  doctrine  was  that 
his  doctrine  went  against  life,  for  listen  to  him  in 
his  last  breath :  "  You  shall  immolate  a  cock  to 
Esculapius."  That  is  to  say :  "  Esculapius  has 
now  cured  me  of  life."  Therefore  life  is  evil. 
Final  pessimism,  the  pessimism  of  aim  which  the 
doctrine  of  Socrates  contains.  Socrates  perceived  it 
truly  indeed  and  expressed  it  magnificently  in  his  last 
words,  surely  the  most  pessimistic  words  ever 
uttered. 

However,  the  man  of  theory,  by  opposition  to  the 
man  of  instinct,  to  the  man  of  creation  and  to  the 
man  that  causes  life  to  be  loved,  the  artist  that  is, 
has  been  established  and  enthroned.  He  will  learn, 
reason,  know  and  build  theories.  All  this  is  very 
futile.  Science  may  fill  its  strength  but  it  is  radi- 
cally and  ridiculously  powerless  to  fulfill  its  aim. 
What  does  it  propose  to  do  ?  To  know,  of  course. 
Very  well,  but  what  is  knowledge?  To  know  is  to 
establish  the  way  in  which  all  that  is  in  ourselves 
perceives  what  is  not  ourselves.  It  is  not  therefore 
to  know,  but  to  know  ourselves;  to  test  our  faculties 
in  the  exercise  of  themselves,  precisely  nothing  else. 
It  is  to  establish  how  we  are,  feel,  think,  measure 
and  reason.  Nothing  else.  We  have  not  yet  come 
out  of  ourselves.  We  know  ourselves  better  and 
nothing  else. 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE  ^^ 

But  by  testing  our  faculties  we  strengthen  them. 

To  be  sure,  and  after  having  thus  strengthened 
them  for  thousands  of  centuries,  where  shall  we  be? 
We  shall  be  able  to  see  what  our  faculties,  which 
will  be  very  much  exercised  and  very  much  strength- 
ened, can  accomplish  and  how,  very  much  exercised 
and  very  much  strengthened,  they  perceive  the 
world.  Is  the  world  better  known  thereby?  The 
world,  not  at  all,  but  yet  our  faculties.  W'e  have 
not  yet  come  out  of  ourselves;  wc  have  developed 
oxirsclves  but  without  coming  out  of  ourselves. 
We  have  pushed  further  our  own  selves  but  with- 
out ever  escaping  them,  for  that  is  not  a  possible 
feat.  We  know  ourselves  better  or  we  know  a 
greater  self  but  of  what  is  not  of  us,  we  know 
nothing.  What,  then,  is  the  use  ?  "  Seek  knowl- 
edge !  Yes,  but  always  as  man !  What !  For  ever 
to  remain  a  spectator  of  the  same  comedy,  for  ever 
to  play  a  part  in  the  same  comedy?  Never  to  be 
able  to  look  upon  things  but  with  these  same  eyes? 
Yet,  how  many  beings  there  must  be  —  innumerable 
are  they  —  whose  organs  are  fitter  to  gather  knowl- 
edge than  our  own!  At  the  end  of  all  its  knowl- 
edge, zcliat  shall  humanity  have  knoivnf  Its  or- 
gans. And  that  may  conceivably  mean :  impossi- 
bility of  knowledge.  What  misery  and  disgust! 
...  A  bad  spell  comes  over  you ;  your  reason  is 
doing  you  violence.  To-morrow  however  you  shall 
be  once  more  right  in  the  midst  of  knowledge  and 
by  the  same  token  right  in  sheer  nonsense  and  by 
this  I  mean  in  the  joy  that  everything  human  will 
cause  you.     Let  us  go  to  the  seaside!  " 


78  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

Indeed,  let  us  shake  off  this  yoke;  let  us  escape 
from  the  jaws  of  the  vice  of  subjective  scepticism. 
It  is  nevertheless  unavoidable  and  will  always  return 
to  do  us  violence;  it  is  absolutely  irrefutable.  But 
let  us  escape  from  it  and  do  what  men  have  always 
done,  let  us  pretend  that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  know 
something.  Very  well,  let  us  take  up  the  thread 
again.  What  is  the  aim  of  science?  Well,  it  sets 
itself  up  facing  the  world,  please  note  it  is  the  world, 
and  it  aims  at  knowing  and  explaining  it,  to  impart  a 
real  and  true  knowledge  thereof;  real  meaning  com- 
plete, and  true  meaning  logical,  connected,  systema- 
tic. In  other  terms,  or  else  the  words  have  no 
meaning  whatsoever,  it  sets  out  to  empty  the  infinite. 
By  definition  it  is  powerless. —  You  may  argue  that 
it  is  something,  to  pull  something  out  from  the  in- 
finite and  to  explain  it,  to  make  it  clear  and  under- 
stood. But  every  part  of  the  infinite  holds  to  the 
whole  of  the  infinite  and  cannot  be  explained  with- 
out the  whole  being  explained.  Hear  the  words  of 
Claude  Bernard :  "  If  I  knew  any  one  thing  thor- 
oughly, I  would  know  everything."  The  explana- 
tions of  science  are  therefore  always  so  superficial 
that  they  are  equivalent  to  a  non-explanation,  that 
they  are  a  non-explanation,  and  that  all  the  knowl- 
edge of  science  knows  nothing. 

Science  may  be  a  game,  if  you  like,  quite  a  seri- 
ous and  honorable  game.  But  there  is  no  sufficient 
reason  to  give  those  that  are  thus  playing  a  game 
any  pre-eminence  in  humanity,  to  entrust  humanity 
to  them.  It  even  savors  of  the  ridiculous :  "  The 
adepts  of  science  give  the  impression  of  people  who 


RATIONALISM   AND  SCIENCE  79 

would  have  intended  to  dig  a  vertical  hole  piercing 
the  earth  from  end  to  end.  The  first  one  discovers 
that,  if  working  during  the  whole  of  his  life  with  the 
greatest  assiduity,  he  could  but  succeed  in  piercing 
an  infinitesimal  part  of  the  enormous  depth  and  that, 
moreover,  the  result  of  his  work  would  be  filled  in 
and  reduced  to  nothing  by  the  work  of  his  neighbor." 
The  savant,  the  rationalist,  the  man  of  theory  is 
therefore  a  degenerate  man,  an  under-man.  Have 
you  read  Faust?  Did  you  understand  it?  Well, 
it  is  the  condemnation  in  three  parts  of  the  man  of 
theory.  Faust  is  at  first  the  man  of  to-day,  the  man 
of  theory,  the  man  who  would  have  been  utterly 
unintelligible  to  a  Greek  before  Socrates ;  he  is  the 
man  who  is  eaten  up  with  a  passion  for  knowledge, 
eaten  up  with  a  passion  for  "  culture." —  He  per- 
ceives the  vanity  thereof  and  experiments  with 
sentimental  life. —  Sentimental  life  does  not  offer 
him  much  resistance,  does  it  ?  —  Then,  having 
tlirozi'H  himself  into  the  contemplation  of  the  Hel- 
lenic antiquity  and  having  long  tarried  there-mith, 
what  does  he  reach?  He  reaches  the  life  of  action, 
the  life  that  does  not  reason  nor  does  it  sing  the 
sentimental  romance  but  acts  and  creates.  What 
does  this  mean?  It  means  that  the  progress  of 
Faust  consisted,  in  going  back  from  the  XlXth  cen- 
tury to  the  Renaissance  and  from  the  Renaissance 
to  pre-Socratic  Greece.  The  progress  of  Faust  con- 
sisted in  his  turning  his  back  to  "  Progress."  Each 
true  progress  shall  do  likewise.  Scientific  life,  ra- 
tional and  theorical  life  it  is  that  indicates  decadence. 
"  The  fact  that  science  has  gained  this  extent  of 


8o  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

sovereignty  shows  that  the  XlXth  century  has  es- 
caped from  the  dominion  of  the  ideal,  j  A  certain 
lack  of  aspirations  and  desires  renders  possible  to 
us  the  scientific  inquisitiveness  and  strictness,  this 
kind  of  virtue  which  is  proper  to  us." 

Inquisitiveness  is  a  passion  but  it  is  the  last  of 
them;  it  is  an  old  man's  passion.  An  old  man  it 
was  who  first  said :  "  Out  of  mere  inquisitiveness 
am  I  still  alive,"  and  he  said  it  with  much  melan- 
choly. No  doubt,  there  are  men  who  are  born 
with  that  "  high  curiosity  "  as  Renan  called  it ;  but 
they  are  those  who  are  born  old.  Youth  wants 
to  live  and  do.  The  scientific  age  is  the  last  age  of 
humanity,  or  it  would  be  the  last  if  humanity  were 
not  fortunate  enough  to  fall  under  the  law  of  "  eter- 
nal return  "  which  is  one  of  Nietzsche's  dogmas,  or 
one  of  his  hopes. 

There  is  hardly  a  more  powerful  illusion  than 
this  idea,  truly  universal  nowadays,  which  consists 
in  confusing  civilization  and  science.  The  idea  is 
general,  with  the  men  who  think  they  have  medi- 
tated and  even  with  any  other  man,  whether  he 
belongs  to  the  people  or  to  the  elite,  and  perhaps 
even  more  so  with  the  man  of  the  people.  The  civ- 
ilized man  is  the  man  that  knows ;  the  cultured  man 
is  the  man  that  knows.  Nothing  is  more  false  than 
this  idea.  The  artist  that  knows  nothing  at  all 
and  the  man  of  action  that  knows  little  are  as  cul- 
tured and  civilized,  often  much  more  so,  than  the 
savant :  "  All  our  modern  world  is  caught  in  the 
web  of  Alexandrine  culture  and  has  for  its  ideal  the 
man   of   theory,    armed    with   the   most  powerful 


RATIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE  8l 

means  of  knowledge,  working  in  the  service  of 
science  and  whose  prototype  and  original  ancestor 
was  Socrates.  This  ideal  is  the  principle  and  the 
aim  of  all  our  educational  methods.  All  other  kinds 
of  existence  (art,  life  of  action  or  industrial  life) 
must  painfully  struggle,  accessorily  develop  itself 
not  as  a  projected  end  but  as  a  tolerated  occupa- 
tion. A  disposition  almost  appalling  caused  this  for 
a  long  time,  that  the  cultured  man  was  only  ac- 
knowledged as  such  if  he  took  the  form  of  the 
learned  }nan.  Our  very  art  of  poetry  is  born  of 
learned  imitations.  .  .  .  The  type  of  Faust,  at  his 
starting  point,  would  seem  utterly  unintelligible  to  a 
true  Greek.  .  .  ."  Think,  however,  of  the  end  of 
Faust  and  note  also  what  Goethe  said  to  Eckermann. 
They  were  speaking  of  Napoleon.  Eckermann  did 
not  understand  him  at  all.  "  But,  my  friend," 
Goethe  said,  "  in  actions  also  is  there  productivity." 
In  this  "  delightful  and  naive  way "  Goethe  was 
reminding  his  friend  that  the  non-theorical  man 
oflfers  to  the  men  of  to-day,  to  the  Eckermanns, 
something  "  improbable  and  disconcerting "  and 
therefore  that  the  wisdom  of  a  Goethe  is  necessary 
for  one  to  conceive  and  verily  to  excuse  so  unusual 
a  mode  of  existence." 

Goethe  saw  very  well  that  science  did  not  offer 
the  only  means  of  productivity.  It  is  even  an  in- 
ferior one  and  prevents  the  display  of  the  higher 
glorious  means  of  productivity.  The  new  idol  is 
somewhat  lowly  and  if  it  is,  as  we  have  shown  it 
to  be,  also  barren,  it  diverts  men  from  the  direction 
of  the   fertile  sources.     It  chills  and  hardens  the 


82  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

world;  renders  it  insipid  without  even  fulfilling  its 
pretentious  design,  which  is  to  cause  the  world  to 
be  known. 

Has  science  even  that  fine  merit  of  which  it  brags, 
of  being  the  opponent  of  credulity,  of  destroying 
faith?  Science  and  faith,  how  often  these  two 
words  and  what  they  stand  for  have  been  set  up 
against  each  other?  Please  note,  however,  that 
science  is  based  upon  a  faith,  that  it  is  a  sign  that 
man  does  need  a  faith,  a  mystical  certainty  and 
that  it  confirms  and  strengthens  in  the  minds  of 
men  their  mania  for  credulity  and  their  irrational 
and  childish  need  for  mystical  certainty.  "  The 
fierce  desire  for  certainty  is  poured  out  to-day  in 
the  compact  masses  with  scientific  and  positivist 
airs  "  and  again  "  this  desire  to  obtain  at  any  price 
something  tangible  is  that  same  desire  for  a  prop 
and  a  support,  that  same  instinct  of  weakness  which 
creates  or  preserves  religions  and  metaphysics." 
Faith  in  science  is  but  merely  a  form  of  piety  and 
nothing  else :  "  In  what  manner,  we  also,  are  we 
still  pious?"  In  this  way.  We,  the  scientists,  we 
pledge  ourselves  firmly  not  to  believe  out  of  faith, 
out  of  a  priori  convictions,  to  believe  but  that  which 
shall  have  been  proved  real  and  true.  Very  well. 
But  in  order  to  impose  this  discipline  upon  our- 
selves "  so  that  this  discipline  may  begin  to  act " 
must  there  not  be  an  a  priori  conviction,  to  wit  that 
the  proved  is  better  than  the  not  proved?  To  be 
sure  that  conviction  is  needed  and  it  must  be  im- 
perious and  absolute,  and  it  is  an  imperative  and  it 
is  not  proved.     But,  please,  it  is  a  faith !     "  It  is 


RATIONAUSM   AND  SCIENCE  83 

well  shown  that  science  therefore  also  rests  upon  a 
faith  and  that  no  unconditional  science  could  exist." 

You  may  say  that  it  is  not  a  faith  but  merely  the 
desire,  merely  a  natural  and  legitimate  desire,  not 
to  be  deceived.  Very  well,  but  then  this  desire 
not  to  be  deceived  presupposes  another  idea  which 
is  this :  it  were  better  not  to  be  deceived  than  to 
be  deceived.  Speaking  in  the  domain  of  general 
ideas,  how  do  you  come  to  know  that?  It  is  most 
unproved  that  it  were  better  not  to  be  deceived  than 
be  deceived.  Speaking  in  the  domain  of  general 
truth,  your  will  of  truth  is  therefore  a  gratuitous 
one ;  it  exists  because  it  exists ;  it  exists  because  that 
you  were  born  with  it.  It  is  an  a  priori  con- 
viction: it  is  a  faith. 

You  may  retort  that  that  is  not  quite  the  case.  It 
is  not  that  I  do  not  wish  to  be  deceived ;  it  is  rather 
that  I  do  not  wish  to  deceive  others.  Well,  of 
course,  that  is  another  thing.  We  were  in  the  do- 
main of  metaphysics,  and  we  are  now  in  that  of 
morality.  I  thought  I  had  to  deal  with  a  meta- 
physical faith ;  but  it  is  a  moral  one.  Still,  it  comes 
to  the  same  point  or  very  near  to  it.  Again  it  is  an 
imperative,  an  unproved  and  unprovable  fixed  idea. 
You  want  the  truth  because  you  do  not  wish  to 
deceive;  because  you  are  an  honest  man.  Very 
good.  But  who  told  you  that  you  should  not  de- 
ceive, who  persuaded  you  of  that  little  Don  Quixo- 
tism, of  that  "  enthusiastic  little  nonsense  "?  Your 
conscience,  your  holy  conscience!  All  right,  but 
then  you  can  see  that  the  wish  for  truth  rests  upon 
an  imperative^  which  does  not  give  its  reasons  and 


84  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

which  is  determined  not  to  give  them,  again  upon 
a  faith.  Therefore,  whether  your  wish  for  truth 
comes  from  a  wish  not  to  be  deceived  or  from  a 
wish  not  to  deceive,  it  rests  either  upon  an  a  priori 
philosophical  conviction  or  upon  an  a  priori  moral 
conviction.  The  desire  to  possess  what  is  proved 
rests  upon  an  idea  or  a  feeling,  neither  of  which  is 
proved  or  can  be  proved.  Therefore  "  it  is  again 
upon  a  metaphysical  belief  that  rests  our  faith  in 
science."     Whence  comes  this  metaphysical  belief? 

Well,  it  is  most  likely  to  come  from  the  an- 
cient theologies  which  have  penetrated  and  soaked 
us  for  thousands  of  years.  All  this  is  still  a  rem- 
nant of  God :  "  We  ourselves  who  are  to-day  seek- 
ing knowledge,  we  the  anti-metaphysicians  and  im- 
pious men,  are  still  borrowing  our  kindling  sparks 
from  the  fire  that  was  lit  by  a  thousand  years  old 
faith,  by  that  Christian  faith  that  was  also  that 
of  Plato  and  that  established  as  a  principle  that 
God  is  truth  and  that  truth  is  divine." 

Come  to  think  of  it  for  a  while,  it  is  strange  that 
this  same  science  that  has  freed  mankind  and  must 
free  it  more  and  more  —  you  know  the  common- 
place —  needs  itself  a  slavery,  necessitates  that 
slavery  and  at  the  same  time  refuses  to  hear  about 
it,  brings  it  forth  in  deed  and  proscribes  it  in  words. 
The  theorical,  scientific,  "  Alexandrine  "  civilization 
came  by  degrees  to  thinking,  conceiving  and  pro- 
claiming equality  among  all  men.  Very  well,  if  you 
wish  it.  But  simultaneously,  it  needs,  for  its  mines, 
its  coal,  its  railways,  its  buildings,  its  division  of 
work  which  derives  from  it  all,  it  needs  a  "  people  " 


FL\TIONALISM    AND   SCIENCE  85 

which  is  as  much  a  people  of  slaves,  and,  is  in  cer- 
tain aspects  more  so  than  was  the  servile  mob  of 
Athens  and  Rome :  The  Socialists  have  proved  this 
point  very  clearly  and  moreover  in  this  part  of  their 
reasoning  they  are  right.  Here  is  an  antinomy. 
Here  is  moreover  a  danger.  That  danger  is  that 
the  Alexandrine  civilization,  that  is,  our  own,  may 
be  destroyed  some  day,  possibly  some  near  day,  by 
the  double  result  of  its  practical  necessities  and  its 
theorical  and  declamatory  preachings.  Both  tend 
to  or  end  in  precisely  the  same  result :  "  One  may 
no  longer  conceal  from  one's  self  wdiat  lies  hidden 
beneath  this  Socratic  culture :  the  boundless  illusion 
of  optimism.  Nor  may  one  be  surprised  any  longer 
at  the  fruit  of  such  optimism  ripening;  nor  at  so- 
ciety being  increasingly  shaken  by  the  fever  of  pride 
and  of  the  appetites  because  it  has  become  corroded 
down  to  the  lowest  layers  by  the  acid  of  such  a 
culture ;  nor  at  the  faith  in  an  earthly  happiness  for 
all  and  in  the  possibility  of  such  a  scientific  civiliza- 
tion, gradually  transforming  itself  into  a  threaten- 
ing will,  which  exacts  this  Alexandrine  happiness 
upon  earth  and  invokes  the  intervention  of  a  Dcus 
ex  Machina,  in  Euripides  fashion.  One  must  note 
that  in  order  to  maintain  itself,  the  Alexandrine 
civilization  needs  a  state  of  slavery,  a  class  of  slaves ; 
and  yet,  owing  to  its  optimistic  conception  of  exist- 
ence, it  denies  the  necessity  of  this  state.  There- 
fore, when  the  efTect  of  those  fine  deceiving  and 
soothing  words  has  been  worn  out  over  the  dignity 
of  man  and  the  dignity  of  labor,  that  civilization 
gathers   speed    towards    an   appalling   annihilation. 


/ 


86  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

There  is  nothing  more  terrifying  than  a  barbaric 
people  of  slaves  who  have  learned  to  look  upon  their 
existence  as  an  injustice  and  are  prepared  to  revenge 
themselves  thereof  not  only  by  themselves  but  by  the 
strength  of  all  the  generations  to  come." 

Thus  is  science  most  futile  in  its  work,  pretend- 
ing as  it  does  to  exhaust  the  inexhaustible  and  hav- 
ing, moreover,  explained  nothing  at  all  so  long  as  it 
has  not  explained  everything.  It  is  a  portent  of 
decadence,  it  replaces  the  man  of  production  by  the 
barren  and  impotent  man  of  theory.  It  is  a  leaven 
of  decadence  in  this  that  it  drives  man  away  from 
life  and  beauty  to  restrict  him  to  the  contemplation 
and  the  examination  of  a  "  truth  "  which  is  after 
all  unattainable.  It  does  not  even  enjoy  the  distinc- 
tion of  not  being  faith,  and  of  warding  ofif  mankind 
from  a  faith  considered  childish  since  it  rests  itself 
upon  a  faith  which  remains  as  unproved,  as  un- 
provable and  as  childish  as  any  other.  From  all 
points  of  view,  science  also  is  an  alien,  an  importu- 
nate intruder  and  an  obstacle. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CRITICISING  THE  OBSTACLES: 
MORALITY. 

The  religions  are  false  and  science  is  vain;  all  are 
obstacles  to  strong  life  and  to  real  life  and  leavens 
of  decadence  in  humanity.  Let  us  now  turn  to 
morality,  to  non-religious  morality,  so  as  not  to 
come  back  to  matters  already  examined ;  let  us  turn 
to  independent  morality,  as  considered  since  Soc- 
rates, perhaps  even  since  days  that  came  before 
him ;  let  us  study  it  as  the  law  and  rule  of  human- 
ity and  as  a  thing  that  guides  and  uplifts,  strengthens 
and  broadens  mankind.  It  is  true?  Let  us  see. 
To  begin,  it  seems  that  morality  is  really  false  in 
itself,  without  going  any  further  into  the  analysis 
that  could  be  made  of  it  and  into  the  study  of 
its  effects.  Morality  is  a  commandment  that  en- 
joins us  not  to  be  natural  and  to  avoid  nature.  Is 
not  this  already  strange?  Why  should  a  being, 
who  is  natural  beyond  any  doubt,  who  is  part  of 
nature,  hold  it  as  a  duty  and  a  rule  of  life,  to  live 
contrarily  to  nature  and,  admitting  that  he  should 
do  so,  live  outside  it?  "Man  against  the  world," 
against  "  the  whole  world,"  man  as  "  negatory  prin- 
ciple of  the  world  " —  is  not  this  so  strange  that  it 
becomes    a    laughable    matter?     That    everything 

87 


88  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

should  have  its  laws,  is  possible;  it  is  at  all  events 
the  principle  laid  by  our  opponents.  That  preten- 
tion and  that  other  which  claims  that  we  also  have 
our  own  principle,  but  one  contrary  to  the  universal 
law,  but  one  that  denies,  that  directly  attacks  and 
despises  the  universal  law,  a  mite  of  a  thing  against 
the  world,  a  next-to-nothing  against  all  things,  that 
is  like  the  paradox  of  an  insane  man.  "  The  mon- 
strous bad  taste  of  such  an  attitude  is  apparent  to 
our  conscience  and  inspires  in  us  nothing  but  dis- 
gust." 

It  seems  established  that  if  morality  is  not  in  na- 
ture and  is  even  against  nature,  it  is  simply  because 
it  is  false.  A  physician  to  whom  you  were  to  say : 
"  Here  is  a  most  peculiar  body ;  it  does  not  obey  the 
law  of  attraction.  It  is  the  only  body  in  nature  that 
fails  to  obey  attraction ;  it  even  resists  it  most  firmly. 
How  do  you  account  for  that  fact?  "  would  reply  in 
the  words  of  Arago :  "  There  is  one  explanation :  it 
is  that  the  fact  you  mention  is  not  true.  You  are 
under  a  delusion  concerning  that  body;  if  it  were 
endowed  with  intelligence  and  had  that  same  illusion 
upon  itself  I  would  tell  it  that  it  is  crazy." 

Morality,  considered  in  what  it  is  in  the  main,  that 
is,  a  law  peculiar  to  man,  one  that  the  universe 
does  not  obey  and  that  is  contrary  to  those  obeyed 
by  the  universe,  is  a  mere  folly,  an  illusion  and 
therefore  untrue. 

Men  have  felt  this  perfectly  well.  Finding  in 
spite  of  all,  the  paradox  of  that  very  small  man  set 
up  against  the  whole  immense  universe  too  mon- 
strous, they  invented,  as  counterpoise,  another  uni- 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:       MORALITY        89 

verse  that  would  stand  in  with  man  on  the  same 
side  of  the  scale.  They  invented  the  divine  world. 
There  is  the  universe ;  it  is  absolutely  immoral,  that 
is  so;  but  here  is  Gk)d  who  is  moral,  like  man,  just, 
like  man ;  who  is  the  keeper  and  avenger  of  morality 
and  justice  and  puts  everything  right  at  a  given 
moment,  in  a  given  place  and  according  to  justice 
and  morality.  Hence  a  counterpoise.  On  the  one 
side  is  the  universe;  on  the  other  stand  God  and 
man.  Even  admitting  man  to  be  worthless,  God 
is  infinite.  It  is  therefore  the  universe,  which,  by 
comparison  with  God  and  man  together  becomes  a 
negligible  quota  and  a  mere  nothing.  Conse- 
quently, morality,  which  has  for  itself  one  part  of 
what  is  in  nature  and  the  whole  of  the  super- 
natural as  well,  cares  nothing  at  all  for  the  universe, 
which  is  in  turn  but  a  part,  an  atom  and  even  a 
midget  of  an  atom  and  immoral. 

Very  well  played.  And,  by  the  way,  it  proves 
once  more  what  intimate  connection  there  is  be- 
tween morality  and  religion,  and  between  morality 
and  the  supernatural.  When  morality  docs  not 
come  from  the  supernatural,  does  not  proceed  from 
it,  morality  needs  it  in  order  to  avoid  being  paradox- 
ical and  ridiculous  and  invents  it  to  secure  ballast, 
and  weight  and  authority  and  to  force  itself  upon 
men.  "  The  transcendental  world  was  conceived 
by  Kant  so  that  he  could  leave  moral  liberty  its 
place." 

Very  well  played.  But  it  is  a  game,  it  is  sheer 
jugglery.  We  are  in  nature.  This  nature  has  its 
laws;  it  may  be  that  they  were  established  by  God 


90  ON   READING  NIETZSCHE 

but  laws  it  has.  The  natural,  the  true  and  the 
divine  points  are,  if  nature  is  the  work  of  a  God, 
that  we  should  conform  to  the  natural  laws  and 
not  that  we  should  revolt  against  them.  A  fish  that 
would  want  to  live  in  the  air  and  that  would  be 
persuaded  that  its  duty  commands  it  to  live  there, 
would  be  a  most  peculiar  animal. 

Who  fails  to  perceive  that  such  an  invention  of  a 
whole  supernatural  world  in  order  to  explain,  or  to 
found  morality,  or  to  save  it  from  the  appearance 
of  being  absurd,  is  merely  an  artificial  transposition 
and  projection?  The  moral  man,  surprised  in  a 
way  at  his  being  one,  wishing  to  investigate  that 
point  and  to  justify  himself  for  his  being  moral, 
projects  himself  into  the  infinite  and  invents  a  moral 
God  who  is  but  man  himself  immoderately  en- 
larged. He  delights  and  recomforts  himself  in  that 
shadow  of  himself  and  says  to  himself :  "  I  am 
not  alone;  I  am  not  the  only  one  of  my  kind.  I 
have  a  sublime  and  strong  companion  whom  I  re- 
semble and  who  supports  me  against  the  world 
which  is  so  different  from  myself  and  which  is  no 
doubt  an  hostile  world.  He  will  defend  me  against 
it  and  reward  me  for  my  resistance.  At  least  he 
gives  me  confidence  by  his  mere  presence.  At 
least  he  saves  me  from  being  ludicrous  and  from 
the  terror  of  being  alone  of  my  kind,  as  a  stranger 
in  an  unknown  land."  Morality,  inventing  the 
transcendental  world  to  reassure  itself,  is  like  a 
traveler  conversing  in  friendly  terms  with  his  own 
shadow. 

But,    notwithstanding    the    whole    real    universe 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES :      MORALITY        9I 

and  independently  of  the  transcendental  universe. 
I  find  the  moral  law  in  my  own  conscience.  That 
also  is  a  fact,  a  real  fact,  which  we  must  surely 
take  into  account  and  upon  which  I  would  be  glad 
to  have  your  opinion. 

Nietzsche  answered  this  in  a  Critic  of  the  Con- 
science, which  offers  us  nothing  very  new  for  it  is 
almost  wholly  to  be  found  in  La  Rochefoucauld 
but  which  is  renovated  by  the  liveliness  of  his  elo- 
quence and  of  his  sarcasms,  by  his  psychological 
penetration  and  the  vigor  of  his  dialectic.  These 
are  personal  to  Nietzsche  and  would  have  made 
that  work  of  his  an  incomparable  little  volume  but 
for  the  fact  that  its  contents  are  scattered  in  a 
score  of  passages  of  his  works.  I  shall  do  little  else 
than  gather  it  together.  Quotations,  in  this  case 
as  in  every  other  whenever  Nietzsche  enjoyed  clear 
sight,  are  much  to  be  preferred  to  interpretations, 
no  matter  who  tenders  them. 

You  allege  that  your  conscience  imperiously  com- 
mands you  to  do  this  or  that,  and  that  it  is  painful 
to  you  not  to  obey  its  dictates.  You  say  that  "  when 
man  decides  that  this  or  that  is  good  as  it  stands 
and  when  he  concludes  that,  for  that  reason,  it 
must  be  so  and  finally  that,  when  he  does  what  he 
has  thus  found  to  be  right  and  necessary,  then  the 
action  is  a  moral  one."  That  is  what  you  say. 
"  But,  my  friend,  you  are  speaking  here  of  three 
actions  instead  of  one,  because  your  judgment: 
'  this  or  that  is  good  as  it  stands  '  is  a  first  action." 
W'ell,  that  action  is  arbitrary  or  at  least  uncon- 
trolled.    "  Whatever  it  is  that  you  are  thinking  of, 


92  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

why  do  you  consider  it  to  be  right?  Because  my 
conscience  shows  it  to  me  "  to  be  right.  Well,  what 
leads  you  to  think  your  conscience  infallible  ?  Why 
not  take  conscience  of  your  conscience?  Why  do 
you  not  analyze  its  decision  ?  "  Your  decision  *  this 
or  that  is  right  as  it  stands '  has  a  previous  history 
which  lies  in  your  instincts,  in  your  tendencies,  your 
antipathies,  your  experiences  and  your  inexperi- 
ences. You  should  be  asking  yourself :  *  How  did 
it  come  to  be  there  ? '  and  again,  later :  What  is  in 
the  end,  prompting  me  to  listen  to  it  ?  "  Because, 
see  this :  "  You  may  be  heeding  its  command  as  a 
brave  soldier  receives  an  order  from  his  command- 
ing officer.  Or  as  a  woman  that  loves  the  man 
whose  bidding  she  does.  Or  as  a  flatterer  and  a 
coward  that  fears  his  master.  Or  as  a  fool  that 
obeys  because  he  finds  no  ready  retort  to  the  order. 
In  short,  you  may  be  obeying  your  conscience  in  a 
hundred  different  ways." 

Think  also  of  the  habits  one  forms.  "  When  you 
pay  attention  to  such  and  such  judgment  as  being 
the  voice  of  your  conscience,  with  the  result  that 
you  consider  something  to  be  right,  you  may  be 
doing  it  because  you  have  never  thought  deeply  upon 
yourself  and  have  blindly  accepted  what  ever  since 
your  childhood  has  been  pointed  out  to  you  as  being 
right." 

Think  also  that  there  may  be  a  subtle  disguise 
over  your  selfishness,  as  La  Rochefoucauld  would 
have  said,  and  that  is  over  your  selfishness.  When 
you  pay  attention  to  this  or  that  judgment  as  being 
the  voice  of  your  conscience,  it  may  be  that  you  do 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        93 

it  "  because  your  daily  bread  and  your  position  came 
to  you  along  with  what  you  call  your  duty ;  and  you 
consider  that  duty  to  be  right  because  it  seems  to 
you  to  be  the  condition  of  your  existence,  for  your 
right  to  existence  seems  to  you  irrefutable." 

Again,  perhaps  "  the  firmness  of  your  moral  judg- 
ment might  well  be  a  proof  of  personal  paucity,  of  a 
lack  of  individuality.  And  the  moral  force  might 
spring  from  your  own  stubbornness  or  from  your 
inability  to  perceive  a  new  ideal.  If,  to  sum  up,  you 
were  a  shrewder  thinker  and  more  observant  and 
had  learned  more,  at  no  price  would  you  still  be 
calling  duty  and  conscience  this  duty  and  this  con- 
science which  you  fancy  to  be  personal  to  you; 
your  religion  would  be  enlightened  as  to  the  way  in 
which  moral  judgments  are  always  reached." — 
They  are  formed  in  a  thousand  different  ways.  It 
is  strange  that  one  should  fail  to  analyze  the  "  cate- 
gorical imperative  "  as  one  would  any  other  phe- 
nomenon of  the  consciousness.  It  is  because  of  this 
phenomenon  one  docs  not  ivish  to  analyze  it ;  one 
does  not  care  to  analyze  it  and  there  are  pretty  good 
reasons  for  that  too.  They  do  not  wish  to  analyze 
the  categorical  imperative  those  that  want  to  act 
with  energy  and  that,  at  the  same  time,  need  to  obey, 
without  discussing  it,  something  very  high  which 
commands  without  reasoning  its  order.  They  need 
the  absolute,  as  a  man  of  action  needs  absolutism : 
"  All  men  that  feel  the  need  of  the  most  violent 
words  and  intonations,  the  most  eloquent  gestures 
and  attitudes  in  order  to  he  able  to  act,  revolution- 
ary politicians,  socialists,  preachers,  with  or  with- 


94  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

out  Christianity,  all  those  who  wish  to  avoid  half- 
success  —  they  all  speak  of  '  duties '  and  of  duties 
with  an  absolute  character.  Otherwise,  and  they 
know  this  very  well,  they  would  have  no  right  to 
their  immoderate  pathos.  They  are  well  aware  of 
it.  For  that  reason,  they  seize  greedily  a  philosophy 
of  morality  that  preaches  any  kind  of  categorical 
imperative.  Or  else  they  assimilate  part  of  a  re- 
ligion, as  did,  for  instance,  Mazzini.  Because  they 
desire  that  others  should  have  absolute  confidence 
in  them,  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  begin  hav- 
ing absolute  confidence  in  themselves,  according  to 
any  kind  of  ultimate  commandment,  which  must  be 
indisputable,  sublime  and  without  a  restriction,  a 
commandment  of  which  they  may  feel  themselves  to 
be  the  servants  and  instruments  and  of  which  they 
would  like  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  servants  and 
instruments.  In  them,  we  find  the  most  natural 
adversaries  of  moral  emancipation  and  of  skepti- 
cism. They  are  often  very  influential ;  but  they  are 
scarce." 

They  do  not  wish  either  to  analyze  the  categorical 
imperative,  those,  and  they  are  much  more  numer- 
ous, who  have  a  selfish  interest  in  disguising  wholly 
terrestrial  and  temporal  submission  and  servility 
under  the  mask  of  a  spiritual  submission  and  a  re- 
ligious or  moral  character.  This  is  a  subtle  move 
of  egotism,  of  which  those  that  benefit  most  by  it 
may  be  more  or  less  the  dupes :  "  A  man  that  feels 
disgraced  at  the  thought  that  he  is  the  tool  of  a 
prince,  a  party,  a  sect  or  even  a  financial  power  and 
yet  wants  to  be,  or  is  compelled  to  turn  himself 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES*.      MORALITY        95 

into,  such  a  tool,  will  need  to  face  himself  and  pub- 
lic opinion,  some  pathetic  principles  that  can  ever  be 
upon  his  lips,  some  principles  of  an  absolute  obli- 
gation to  which  he  may  without  shame  submit  and 
show  his  submission.  Every  manner  of  servility 
with  any  ingenuousness  at  all  holds  on  to  the  cate- 
gorical imperative  and  shows  itself  the  deadly  enemy 
of  those  who  wish  to  divest  duty  of  its  absolute 
character." 

All  this  may  bring  one  back  to  stating  that  con- 
science, far  from  being  the  very  foundation  of  our 
nature,  upon  which  we  must  ever  rest,  is  but  an 
adaptation  of  ourselves  to  all  our  surroundings  and 
to  that  with  which  we  are  compelled  to  live.  Here 
is  what  Leibnitz  thought  of  the  intellectual  con- 
science :  Knowledge  is  but  an  accident  of  represen- 
tation, not  its  essence.  What  we  call  (intellectual) 
conscience  is  but  a  condition  of  our  intellectual  be- 
ing. We  cannot  think  without  forming  conscious- 
ness of  a  certain  quantity  of  our  representations; 
but  that  is  merely  an  accident,  a  relatively  scarce 
one.  No  doubt,  it  is  necessary  for  our  thinking 
but  it  is  not  at  all  the  foundation  of  our  intellectual 
being;  it  is  but  the  surface  thereof.  In  the  same 
way,  the  moral  conscience  is  but  the  intellectual  con- 
sciousness of  an  inceptive  act  to  which  we  are  attrib- 
uting a  certain  value  or  a  certain  beauty.  We  need 
this  conscience  in  order  to  act.  It  conditions  our 
actions ;  it  is  the  condition  of  our  actions.  Without 
it,  we  should  have  no  reason  for  action  or  we  should 
have  a  different  one.  Must  we  then  conclude  that 
it  is  imperative  and  legitimately  imperative?     Not 


96  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

at  all.  It  is  an  incentive  like  any  other,  to  be  con- 
trolled like  any  other,  one  that  can  be  divided  up 
and  subdivided  into  several  back-incentives  like  any 
other  and  not  at  all  a  living  table  of  the  law  to  which 
we  had  but  blindly  to  submit. 

You  may  object:  "Controllable!  Controllable 
by  what?  By  our  conscience,  of  course,  and  here 
we  are  back  to  nonplus,"  To  this  I  shall  re- 
ply: "Assuredly."  It  is  controllable  by  the  con- 
science beyond  the  conscience.  As  there  are  back- 
incentives  in  the  bidding  of  the  conscience  con- 
sidered as  an  incentive,  there  must  be  back-con- 
sciences to  control  those  back-incentives.  Please 
note,  however,  that  in  thus  falling  back  and  in 
throwing  the  conscience  back,  we  are  destroying  it 
because  we  throw  it  back  gradually  into  the  uncon- 
scious, where  it  gets  lost.  By  means  of  analysis  I 
may  subdivide  the  prompting  of  my  conscience  into 
several  motives  or  incentives  and  I  may,  to  be  sure, 
control  them  with  my  conscience.  But  these  in- 
centives, heredity,  education,  temperament  or  mul- 
tiple social  influences  are  either  lost  in  the  dark 
past  or  scattered  in  the  space  of  the  present.  They 
escape  me.  I  am  no  longer  their  judge  nor  yet 
their  master.  I  am  even  unable  to  recognize  them. 
Where,  then,  is  my  control?  This  very  conscience 
which  seemed  so  firm  has  weakened  and  feels  itself 
powerless.  This  very  conscience  which  seemed  so 
strong  and  as  it  were,  so  compact,  has  crumbled  and 
thereby  vanished. 

Therefore  the  "  evidence  "  and  the  "  command  " 
of  conscience  are  but  prejudices  and  illusions,  like 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        97 

SO  many  other  things  that  have  not  been  analyzed. 
Conscience  is  a  niuhiple  thing  which  presents  itself 
to  us  as  simple  and  that  lends  it  authority.  It  is  a 
variable  thing  which  presents  itself  to  us  as  immut- 
able and  that  lends  it  credit.  It  is  a  very  condi- 
tioned and  relative  thing  which  presents  itself  to 
us  as  absolute,  and  that  lends  it  a  divinity  which  it 
lacks.  It  is  an  idol  only  to  those  that  consult  it 
without  looking  at  it.  But  take  a  look  at  it.  Hav- 
ing seen  that  it  is  made  of  materials  and  of  what 
materials  it  is  made,  you  will  no  longer  tremble  be- 
fore it. 

Yet  there  is  responsibility,  the  feeling  of  re- 
sponsibility, which  is  also  a  fact  and  perhaps  a  uni- 
versal fact  and  which,  following  the  dictates  of 
conscience,  confirms  it,  sanctions  it  and  conse- 
quently strengthens  it.  I  am  receiving  —  I  fancy 
that  I  am  receiving  an  order  from  within ;  that  is  the 
first  fact.  If  I  obey  it,  I  am  pleased  with  myself; 
if  I  do  not,  I  am  displeased  with  myself;  that  is  the 
second  fact.  You  have  analyzed  the  first  fact  and  it 
may  be  you  have  dissolved  it,  but  there  remains  the 
second  for  you  to  analyze.  Willingly.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  feeling  of  responsibility  is  an  illusion. 
This  illusion  comes  to  you  from  believing  that  you 
know  how  your  actions  are  accomplished,  how  "  the 
human  action  is  performed."  That  belief  is  an 
error.  We  do  not  know  at  all  how  the  human  action 
is  performed.  To  think  that  they  know  how  human 
actions  are  performed  is  the  error  of  children  and 
primitive  people.  It  has  taken  us  centuries  to  learn 
"  that  exterior  things  are  not  what  they  seem  to  be. 


98  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

Well,  the  same  is  exactly  true  of  the  inner  world. 
.  .  .  All  actions  are  by  essence  known."     The  an- 
cients believed  that  an  action  is  contained  in  the 
thought  we  have  of  it,  like  the  bird  in  its  egg  and 
that  it  must  necessarily  come  out  of  it.     This  caused 
both  Socrates  and  Plato  logically  to  conclude  that 
to  perform  an  action  is  to  know  it,  that  he  who  knows 
it  does  it,  that  he  who  does  not  do  it  is  merely  a  man 
who  did  not  know  it  and  that  the  criminal  is  but  a 
man  who  does  not  know  virtue.     Does  not  this  seem 
quite  childish  to  you  ?     Yet  it  would  be  the  truth  if 
we  knew  how  an  action  is  accomplished.     In  that 
case,  it  would  be  perfectly  correct  to  measure  the 
thought  by  the  action  and,   from   such  and   such 
action  left  undone,  to  conclude   that  the  thought 
thereof  had  not  existed  and,  from  an  act  accom- 
plished, that  the  thought  thereof  had  existed.     But 
that  is  far  from  being  correct.     There  is  between 
thought  and  action  something  which  we  do  not  know 
at  all.     "  What  one  may  know  of  an  action  is  never 
sufficient  to  accomplish  it  and  the  passage  from  un- 
derstanding to  action  has  never  to  this  day  been 
estabHshed  in  any  case."     Hence  responsibility  dis- 
appears.    You  can  hardly  be  the  cause  of  an  action 
when  it  is  impossible  to  you  to  make  out  with  your- 
self what  caused  it  to  be.     So  long  as  one  does  not 
know  how  the  passage  from  idea  to  cause  is  ac- 
complished and  so  long  as  one  is  ignorant  of  all 
there  is  between  them  both,  of  all  that  there  may 
be  and  of  all  that  there  must  be  between  them,  to 
hold  one's  self  as  responsible  is  the  effect  of  an  illu- 


m 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        99 

sion,  of  a  prejudice  and  of  a  clumsy  and  erroneous 
knowledge  of  one's  self. 

Let  us  reflect  awhile  upon  the  impossibility  in 
which  we  stand  truly  to  know  our  inner  mechanism 
and  consequently  to  be  responsible,  rewardable,  or 
punishable  or  even  to  hold  any  opinion  thereon. 
Think  of  this:  we  hardly  know  ourselves  and  can 
hardly  give  names  to  even  our  coarsest  instincts ; 
and  as  to  "  their  power,  their  ebb  and  flow,  their 
reciprocal  play,  as  to  the  laws  that  rule  over  their 
nutrition,  these  are  utterly  unknown  to  us."  Why 
does  the  same  fact  irritate  one  man  and  amuse  an- 
other and  why  does  it  irritate  and  amuse  the  same 
man  according  to  his  mood  ?  "  We  notice,  one  day, 
while  crossing  a  public  place,  that  some  one  is  laugh- 
ing at  us.  .  .  .  According  to  the  kind  of  man  we  are, 
the  event  will  be  a  different  one.  One  may  take  it 
as  he  would  a  drop  of  rain,  another  may  shake  it 
away  from  him  as  he  would  an  insect.  One  man 
will  seek  therein  a  cause  for  quarrel,  another  will 
examine  his  clothes  to  see  whether  they  are  afford- 
ing a  cause  for  laughter ;  another  will  be  thinking  of 
the  ludicrous  in  itself ;  finally  there  may  be  one  man 
who  will  rejoice  at  having  unwittingly  contributed 
to  add  one  sun  ray  to  the  gaiety  of  the  world. —  And 
in  every  one  of  these  cases,  a  certain  instinct  will 
find  its  satisfaction,  whether  it  be  that  of  vexation, 
or  that  of  combativeness,  that  of  meditation  or  that 
of  kindliness." 

I  have  been  supposing  several  men ;  but  I  might 
have   supposed  one  same  man  as   feeling  any  of 


lOO  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

these  sentiments.  Why  is  that?  Because  at  that 
time  it  happened  to  be  his  "  mood,"  to  use  a  popular 
saying.  But  when  we  say  mood,  what  do  we  mean  ? 
It  means  that  one  particular  instinct  of  the  man,  and 
not  another  instinct,  pounced  upon  that  incident  as 
if  it  were  a  prey,  or  loot  and  fed  on  it.  But  why 
this  particular  instinct  and  not  another ;  why  pre- 
cisely this  one  ?  Because  it  had  at  the  time  reached 
the  climax  of  its  craving,  because  it  was  famished 
and  on  the  watch.  But  why  at  that  special  mo- 
ment? That  you  will  never  know.  You  do  not 
understand  the  nutrition  of  your  instincts. 

Here  is  one  of  Nietzsche's  personal  recollections : 
"  Recently,  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  man 
fell  down  straight  before  my  eyes  as  if  struck  by 
lightning:  all  the  women  about  the  place  began  to 
scream.  But  I  set  him  up  again  on  his  feet  and 
waited  near  him  until  he  recovered  his  power  of 
speech.  I  felt  no  emotion.  I  felt  neither  fear  nor 
pity.  I  simply  did  what  there  was  to  be  done  and 
quietly  went  my  way.  Suppose  that  some  one 
should  have  warned  me  the  day  before  that  the  next 
day  at  eleven  o'clock  a  man  would  fall  at  my  feet, 
I  should  have  undergone  the  most  varied  torments, 
I  could  not  have  slept  and  when  the  decisive  moment 
came  I  might  have  been  taken  like  that  man  instead 
of  helping  him.  For  in  the  interval  all  the  instincts 
that  one  can  imagine  would  have  had  time  to  rep- 
resent themselves  and  to  comment  upon  the  fact. 
The  events  of  our  life  are  much  more  what  we  put 
in  them  than  what  they  contain  themselves.     It  may 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        lOI 

be  that  they  themselves  are  ahogether  empty.     It 
may  be  that  to  Hve  is  to  invent." 

The  point  is  that  the  play  of  our  instincts  and 
especially  the  causes  of  the  play  of  our  instincts  are 
unknown  to  us.  "  Our  estimates  and  our  moral 
judgments  are  mere  images  and  fancies  hiding  a 
physiological  process  which  is  unknown  to  us,  .  .  . 
Everything  that  we  call  conscience  is  after  all  noth- 
ing but  the  more  or  less  fanciful  comment  made 
upon  an  unknown,  perhaps  upon  an  unknowable 
text." —  How  could  we  then  be  responsible  for  a 
spectacle  the  whole  of  which  we  do  not  see,  which 
we  see  badly,  which  we  hear  badly,  of  which  we 
know  neither  the  side  scenes  nor  the  ins  and  outs 
and  of  which  we  are  certainly  not  the  authors? 

The  mistake  over  this  judgment  of  the  conscience 
lies  in  imagining  that  it  has  a  value  and  that  it  gives 
a  "  value."  It  is  a  phenomenon  of  registration.  It 
registers  a  state  of  content  or  of  discontent,  of  appe- 
tite or  of  repugnance,  it  does  not  assess  the  action  to 
be  performed  or  the  action  that  has  been  performed  ; 
it  should  not  be  consulted  in  order  to  know  whether 
the  action  has  or  has  not  a  value :  "  Otherwise  we 
would  be  reasoning  as  follows:  our  conscience  re- 
jects and  repulses  this  action;  therefore  this  action 
should  be  condemned.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
conscience  disapproves  of  this  action  because  this 
action  has  been  disapproved  of  for  a  long  time.  It 
creates  no  value."  We  shall  agree  to  this  more  read- 
ily if  we  think  that,  at  the  beginning,  it  was  not  con- 
science '  which  led  in  the  end  '  doubtlessly  to  the  re- 


102  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

jection  of  certain  actions ;  it  was  the  judgment  or  the 
prejudice  relating  to  the  consequences  of  that  ac- 
tion." 

Taking  it  thus  the  conscience  is  but  the  registrar 
of  feehngs,  of  ideas  and  prejudices  which  are  past, 
and  obsolete  and  which  have  lapsed  in  themselves. 
And  if  you  look  upon  it  as  the  register  of  quite 
actual  feelings  or  thoughts,  its  authority  as  a  crea- 
tor of  values,  as  causing  something  to  have  a  value, 
is  no  greater ;  because  in  fine  "  the  approval  of  the 
conscience  and  a  feeling  of  comfort  which  comes 
from  being  at  peace  with  one's  self  are  of  the  same 
order  as  the  pleasure  of  an  artist  before  his  own 
work.  They  prove  nothing  at  all.  Content  is  not  a 
measure  to  assess  that  to  which  it  relates,  not  any 
more  than  the  lack  of  content  can  be  used  as  an 
argument  against  the  value  of  a  thing.  We  are  far 
from  knowing  enough  to  be  able  to  assess  our 
actions;  we  lack  for  this  the  possibility  of  taking 
an  objective  point  of  view.  Were  we  even  to  disap- 
prove of  an  action,  we  should  not  be  judges  but 
parties  to  it.  The  noble  sentiments  which  accom- 
pany an  act  prove  nothing  as  to  the  value  of  the  act : 
in  spite  of  a  most  pathetic  state  of  elevation  the  art- 
ist may  give  birth  to  a  very  poor  thing. —  One 
hardly  knows  if  one  should  not  even  go  further  and 
say  that  these  impulses  of  conscience  "  are  deceiv- 
mg."  That  may  be  that.  "  They  may  cause  us  to 
look  in  the  wrong  place,  they  may  divert  our  power 
for  critical  judgment;  they  may  lead  us  away  from 
caution  and  from  the  suspicion  that  we  may  do  some- 
thing stupid  " ;  they  may  "  make  us  stupid.'* 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        IO3 

Men  are  most  illogical.  It  is  understood  and  tlie 
consent  is  practically  unanimous  over  this  that  we 
are  not  responsible  for  our  dreams.  But  why? 
"  Nothing  belongs  to  you  more  properly  than  your 
dreams ;  nothing  is  more  thoroughly  your  own  work. 
Subject,  form,  sector,  spectator,  you  yourself  are 
all  these  and  everything  is  yourself  in  those  com- 
edies." It  is  the  dreams  that  the  self  perhaps  unal- 
loyed, perhaps  almost  allowed,  at  all  events  with 
much  less  alloy  than  in  our  state  of  wakefulness,  is 
revealed  to  us.  Awake,  under  the  influence  of  all 
your  surroundings,  you  repress  and  correct  your 
thoughts  and  feelings  as  they  come  forth,  in  consid- 
eration and  conformity  with  the  people  and  the 
things  about  you.  You  are  ashamed  or  afraid  of 
this  or  that  thought  which  comes  to  you  because  it 
would  shame  you  before  others.  You  repress  it, 
you  strangle  it  a  moment  before  it  is  quite  clear,  so 
as  not  to  have  had  it,  to  be  able  to  tell  yourself  that 
you  have  not  had  it.  And  it  is  true  that  you  did  not 
have  it  in  full.  Therefore  the  share  of  others  in 
your  thoughts  and  in  your  feelings  when  you  are 
awake  is  enormous.  In  your  state  of  wakefulness 
it  is  I,  as  much  as  yourself,  who  is  thinking  within 
you.  Surely  not  in  that  state  must  one  seek  and  try 
to  seize  and  snap  your  personality. 

In  the  state  of  sleep  on  the  contrary  you  have  no 
longer  this  power  to  repress  your  dawning  thought. 
Sleep  is  the  domain  of  unrestricted  thought.  The 
dream  is  the  thought  freed  and  consequently  the 
pure  self.  If  you  want  to  know  if  you  are  brave,  at 
heart  and  truly  brave,  if  you  are  a  coward,  or  if  you 


104  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

are  kind  or  wicked,  pay  attention  to  what  you  do 
in  your  dreams.  You  have  there  the  most  precious 
and  surest  text  that  you  could  consult  concerning 
yourself.  Nevertheless  you  pretend  that  you  are 
not  responsible  for  your  dreams,  I  should  feel  in- 
clined to  conclude  "  that  the  great  majority  of  men 
must  be  having  appalling  dreams."  If  they  had  fine 
dreams  they  would  be  proud  of  them  and  they  would 
enthusiastically  declare  themselves  responsible  for 
them ;  they  would  "  exploit  the  nocturnal  poetry  to 
increase  human  pride."  Nevertheless  your  dreams 
are  yourself ;  they  are  more  you  than  you  are  your- 
self when  awake.  When  one  studies  the  character 
of  a  person  and  makes  him  narrate  his  dreams,  one 
finds  again  in  him  that  person's  feelings  in  the  high- 
est degree  of  artlessness  and  in  a  neater  and  purer 
light  of  artlessness  and  candor. 

Well,  let  us  go  back  to  it.  You  do  not  wish  to  be 
responsible  for  your  dreams.  You  are  right.  But 
you  are  no  more,  you  are  much  less  and  with  a  much 
stronger  reason,  responsible  for  yourself  in  your 
state  of  wakefulness.  "  For  life  is  but  a  dream,  a 
little  less  inconstant,"  as  Pascal  said.  That  is,  life 
is  a  little  more  repressed  and  amended  by  the  non- 
self  which  is  no  doubt  not  yourself.  If  you  are 
more  free  in  your  dreams  than  when  awake  that  is 
not  any  reason  why  you  should  believe  in  your  free 
will  only  when  you  are  awake.  In  last  analysis, 
"  free  will  finds  its  father  and  mother  in  human 
pride  and  vanity."  We  must  note  here  that  there  is 
perhaps  something  "  anti-religious  in  this  theory  of 
free  will ;  that  something  may  be  unconscious  but  it 


CRITICISIXG   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY      'IO5 

is  there.  The  theory  of  free  will  pretends  to  '  create 
for  man  a  right  to  take  himself  as  condition  and 
cause  of  his  superior  acts.'  It  is  therefore  correct 
and  properly  speaking  a  *  form  of  the  feeling  of 
growing  pride.'  And  here  is  its  processus:  '  Man 
feels  his  power,  his  happiness  as  one  says.  It  must 
be  that  his  will  comes  into  play  in  the  face  of  this 
state  of  mind;  otherwise  it  seems  to  him  that  power 
and  happiness  did  not  belong  to  him.  Virtue  is, 
therefore,  the  attempt  to  consider  an  act  of  volition 
in  the  present  or  in  the  past  as  an  antecedent  neces- 
sary to  each  feeling  of  high  and  intense  happiness. 
If  the  will  of  certain  actions  is  regularly  present 
in  conscience  one  may  foresee  that  a  feeling  of 
power  shall  result.'  That  is  an  illusion  natural 
enough  of  our  conceit.  It  is  an  *  optical  play  of 
primitive  psychology.'  It  always  proceeds  from 
*  the  false  supposition  that  nothing  belongs  to  us 
unless  it  be  in  our  conscience  in  the  shape  of  2vill. 
The  whole  doctrine  of  responsibility  is  tacked  on 
this  naive  psyc'hology  that  the  zcill  alone  is  a  cause 
and  that  one'must  be  conscious  of  having  manifested 
one's  will  to  be  able  to  consider  one's  self  as  a 
cause.'  It  is  plain  therefore  that  if  we  go  back  to 
its  principle,  the  principle  of  the  illusion  that  con- 
stitutes it,  '  free  will  finds  its  father  and  mother 
in  the  human  pride  and  vanity.  It  may  be  that  I 
say  this  a  little  too  often ;  but  that  does  not  make 
it  a  he.' " 

One  should  be  thinking  of  this  when  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  criminal  one  has  to  judge.  Of  course 
society  must  be  protected  against  those  that  hamper 


I06  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

it.  On  this  point  Nietzsche  never  varied ;  he  is  even 
an  extremely  harsh  protector  of  society.  But  when 
it  comes  to  punishing,  that  is  an  aberration.  The 
criminal  alone  knows  to  what  extent  he  is  guilty;  or 
rather  he  does  not  know  it  but  he  knows  it  incom- 
parably better  than  you  do.  He  knows  the  whole 
chain  of  exterior  and  interior  circumstances  that 
led  him  to  his  crime,  or  rather  he  does  not  know 
them,  but  as  compared  to  you  he  knows  them.  It 
follows  "  that  he  does  not  consider,  as  his  judge  or 
prosecutor  does,  his  act  as  being  outside  order  and 
comprehension."  You,  as  judge  or  prosecutor,  are 
astonished,  stupefied  before  an  act  that  you  have  not 
committed,  and  which  it  was  impossible  that  you 
should  commit.  And  you  "  measure  the  penalty  pre- 
cisely according  to  the  degree  of  astonishment  that 
you  have  felt."  Herein  lies  the  injustice  that  is 
derived  from  ignorance. 

Do  you  know  in  what  consists  the  work  of  the  de- 
fender in  a  criminal  case?  It  is  very  simple.  It 
consists  in  gradually  emerging  out  of  his  ignorance 
concerning  the  antecedents  and  circumstances  of  the 
act.  It  consists  in  knowing  the  act.  When  he 
knows  it,  the  astonishment  of  which  I  have  spoken 
gradually  diminishes  and  with  it  the  horror  of  the 
act.  The  action  perpetrated  comes  back  within  the 
order  of  things.  In  the  end  it  does  not  appear  at 
all  as  a  fault  but  merely  as  something  that  threatens 
the  community.  If  the  public  prosecutor  was  not 
dominated  by  his  professional  instinct,  and  since  he 
does  exactly  the  same  thing  as  the  counsel  for  the 
defence,  he  also  would,  through  searching  and  know- 


CRITICISING    THE   obstacles:      MORALITY        I07 

ing  the  antecedents  of  the  criminal,  end  by  no  longer 
seeing  the  fault  as  a  fault.  He  would  end  by  under- 
standing the  crime  as  if  he  had  committed  it  and 
consequently  he  would  end  in  not  finding  it  at  all 
criminal  but  merely  dangerous  for  society. 
Through  analyzing  a  criminal  action,  that  is  through 
knowing  it,  one  empties  it  of  all  criminality.  It  is 
extremely  dangerous  if  one  wants  to  punish,  to  study 
a  criminal  affair;  because  one  ends  by  diminishing 
the  distance  between  one's  self  and  the  criminal  until 
that  distance  is  altogether  suppressed.  Starting 
from  this  idea :  "  I  never  would  have  done  such  a 
thing,"  one  reaches  this  other  one :  "  I  certainly 
would  have  done  likewise."  The  institution  of  the 
jury  is  with  regard  to  this  point  an  essentially  social 
thing.  The  juryman  is  an  honest  man  whom  crime 
astonishes  prodigiously  and  for  whom  crime  is  a 
thing  in  which  he  does  not  enter.  He  is  therefore  in 
the  disposition  where  one  should  be  in  order  to  pun- 
ish. The  judge,  who  is  very  much  accustomed  to 
crime,  who  lives  with  crime,  would  end  by  being 
exceedingly  indulgent  to  crime,  so  much  would  he 
end  in  finding  it  natural  and  almost  necessar}',  that 
is  with  regard  to  each  individual  case.  Yet  when 
the  magistrates  decide  on  criminal  cases  instead  of 
the  jury  they  are  not  gentle.  Pardon  me.  Peo- 
ple had  no  doubt  perceived  so  well  that  there  was 
social  danger  in  having  criminals  judged  by  men 
accustomed  to  crime  that  they  had  invented  a  round- 
about way  and  a  fiction.  It  was  forbidden,  if  you 
please,  the  judge  was  forbidden  to  judge  the  crim- 
inal.    He  was  only  permitted  to  apply  the  law  to  the 


I08  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

criminal.  He  had  to  judge  not  at  all  according  to 
his  conscience  but  strictly  according  to  the  law.  He 
did  not  have  to  say :  "  In  my  soul  and  conscience 
this  man  is  guilty  ";  but  he  had  to  seek  the  line  of  a 
certain  book  which  corresponded  to  the  crime  com- 
mitted by  that  man,  and  he  had  to  apply  that  line 
to  that  action  without  any  intervention  of  his  con- 
science, without  any  intervention  of  his  moral  sensi- 
bility. That  is,  we  know  it,  the  way  in  which  the 
judges  of  the  old  regime  always  gave  their  verdict, 
and  considered  it  their  duty  to  do  so.  In  other 
words  the  law  was  made  to  judge.  That  is  some- 
thing which  was  as  far  removed  as  possible  from 
the  species,  and  in  which  it  was  absolutely  impossible 
to  study  the  psychology  of  the  particular  criminal 
that  had  caused  it,  and  which  knew  nothing  at  all 
of  the  particular  point.  In  other  words  again  it 
was  the  crime  not  the  criminal  that  had  to  be  de- 
cided upon.  And  that  was  quite  right,  if  one  wanted 
to  punish.  There  you  can  see  a  very  good  proof 
that  no  confidence  attached  to  an  intelligent  judge, 
precisely  because  of  his  intelligence,  in  order  that 
the  man  should  be  punished.  By  a  roundabout  way 
and  through  a  fiction  he  was  compelled  not  to  decide 
himself.  And  that  was  quite  right  if  one  wanted  to 
punish.  There  are  but  two  ways  to  insure  the  pun- 
ishment of  criminals:  have  them  judged  by  a  book 
which  does  not  know  them,  and  which  has  foreseen 
them  only  in  the  abstract,  or  have  them  judged  by 
men  especially  selected  as  being  incapable  of  under- 
standing them.  And  both  systems  are  very  good  if 
one  wants  society  to  protect  and  defend  itself. 


CRITICISING    THE   OBSTACLES:       MORALITY        lOQ 

Let  us  retain  from  this  that  guilt  is  a  kind  of  prej- 
udice and  that  we  never  know  to  what  extent  a  man 
is  guilty,  nor  whether  he  is  guilty  at  all.  All  that 
we  know,  and  even  that  is  very  hard  to  assess",  is 
that  the  criminal  is  a  danger  for  the  society  that  we 
have  built  up  and  that  we  wish  to  preserve. 

In  these  matters  of  guilt  and  innocence,  of  vice 
and  virtue,  truth  may  not  be,  perhaps,  the  opposite 
of  what  we  have  believed  until  now  Init  rather  the 
reverse  of  what  we  have  believed.  We  have  too 
long  been  accustomed  to  consider  virtue  and  vice 
as  causes.  We  are  now  inclined  to  hold  them  to  be 
consequences  and  we  are  in  a  way  turning  the  ques- 
tion inside  out.  "  We  turn  the  relation  between 
cause  and  eflfect  inside  out  in  a  curious  fashion. 
Nothing  perhaps  distinguishes  us  more  thoroughly 
from  the  ancient  believers  in  morality.  For  in- 
stance we  no  longer  say :  *  If  a  man  is  degenerating 
physiologically  it  was  vice  that  caused  it.'  Neither 
do  we  say  :  '  Virtue  causes  man  to  prosper,  it  brings 
long  life  and  happiness.'  On  the  contrary  our  opin- 
ion is  that  vice  and  virtue  are  not  causes  but  re- 
sults. We  hold  onto  the  idea  that,  in  spite  of  every- 
thing, in  spite  of  education,  surroundings,  fate  or 
circumstance,  one  can  but  become  what  one  is. 
One  becomes  an  honest  man  because  one  is  an  honest 
man ;  that  is  to  say,  because  one  was  born  as  a 
capitalist  of  good  instincts  and  favorable  condi- 
tions. When  one  is  born  to  the  world  poor,  born 
of  parents  who,  in  all  things,  have  but  wasted  and 
have  reaped  nothing,  one  is  *  incorrigible,'  I  mean 
ripe  for  the  penitentiary  or  the  lunatic  asylum.     We 


no  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

can  no  longer  to-day  visualize  moral  degeneracy  as 
separated  from  physiological  degeneracy.  The 
first  is  but  an  ensemble  of  the  symptoms  of  the 
second.  One  is  necessarily  evil  as  one  is  necessarily 
sick.  The  word  evil  here  expresses  certain  in- 
capacities which  are  physiologically  linked  to  the 
type  of  degeneracy,  as  for  instance,  weakness  of  the 
will,  uncertainty  and  even  multiplicity  of  the  per- 
son, powerlessness  in  suppressing  the  reaction  to  any 
given  excitation,  and  in  dominating  one's  self  (like 
the  impulsives),  or  the  incapacity  to  resist  any  kind 
of  suggestion  from  a  foreign  will.  Vice  is  not  a 
cause ;  it  is  a  consequence.  The  word  '  vice  '  is  used 
to  sum  up  in  an  arbitrary  definition  certain  conse- 
quences of  physiological  degeneracy.  A  general 
proposition  like  that  taught  by  Christianity  that 
'man  is  evil'  would  be  justified  if  one  could  admit 
that  the  type  of  the  degenerate  is  to  be  considered  as 
the  normal  type  of  man.  But  that  may  be  an  ex- 
aggeration." 

Again,  in  order  well  to  understand  the  nature  of 
this  morality  of  which  men  are  so  proud,  we  must 
go  back  to  its  origins  and  ask  ourselves  whence  it 
came  and  ask  ourselves  also  whence  it  comes  to 
us  in  the  present  time,  which  is  not  quite  the  same 
thing. 

Whence  did  it  come?  Very  likely  from  the  idea 
of  a  celestial  Nemesis,  from  the  idea  that  some  very 
powerful  beings  who  dominate  us  and  who  may  pun- 
ish us,  like  us  to  suffer  and  like  to  see  us  suffer. 
Here  is  the  sequence  of  things ;  in  primitive  so- 
ciety, in  barbaric  society,  which  were  in  constant 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES  I      MORALITY        III 

danger,  and  perhaps  ferocious  by  nature  but  at  all 
events  accustomed  to  ferociousness  by  a  state  of  per- 
petual warfare :  "  one  liked  to  cause  suffering,  to 
avenge  one's  self ;  it  was  a  virtue  to  be  resource- 
ful in  vengeance  and  insatiable  in  vengeance."  The 
community  grows  conscious  of  its  strength  and  com- 
forts itself,  or  thinks  it  comforts  itself,  with  bloody 
spectacles.  In  a  word  "  cruelty  is  one  of  the  most 
ancient  merr>'-makings  of  humanity."  Under  these 
conditions  what  could  men  believe  concerning  their 
Gods?  As  they  make  them  after  the  image  of 
man  of  course  they  fancy  that  the  Gods  also  take 
pleasure  and  rejoice  in  the  sufTerings  of  men; 
that  the  spectacle  of  human  happiness  makes  them 
sad,  and  that  the  spectacle  of  human  unhappiness 
"  amuses  them  and  puts  them  in  right  good  humor." 
Man,  therefore,  just  as  he  causes  his  kind  to  suffer 
to  please  himself,  so,  to  please  his  Gods,  causes  him- 
self to  suffer,  especially  when  he  feels  happy,  when 
he  feels  too  happy,  happy  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
might  disturb  or  disj)lcase  the  divinities. 

In  that  way  war  against  happiness  becomes  a  duty 
and  voluntary'  suffering  a  pious  deed.  There  is 
nothing  else  to  permit  him  morality.  Morality  is  a 
methodical  succession  of  sacrifices  in  the  most  pre- 
cise sense  of  the  word.  One  struggles  against  a 
desire,  it  is  a  sacrifice  to  the  Gods ;  one  denies  one's 
self  a  pleasure,  it  is  a  sacrifice  to  the  Gods ;  one  re- 
trenches from  one's  superfluous  or  even  one's  neces- 
sary, it  is  a  sacrifice  to  the  Gods.  One  makes  a 
martyr  of  one's  self  and  it  is  a  sacrifice  to  the  Gods. 
The   struggle   of   man   against   himself    is   to   this 


112  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

day  the  whole  of  morality.  Much  more  so,  that  is 
more  precisely  so,  was  it  the  whole  of  morality  in 
primitive  times.  "  Thus  was  introduced  the  notion 
of  the  moral  and  God-fearing  man,  that  is  to  say,  the 
idea  that  virtue  consists  in  suffering  deliberately  de- 
sired, in  privation  and  in  mortification,  not  at  all,  we 
should  note  here,  as  a  means  of  discipline,  self- 
domination  or  aspiration  towards  personal  happi- 
ness ;  but  as  a  virtue  which  causes  the  evil  Gods  to 
be  favorably  disposed  towards  the  community  be- 
cause it  brings  up  to  them  ceaselessly  the  smoke 
of  the  expiatory  sacrifices." 

Once  this  idea  had  penetrated  the  world,  and  that 
must  have  been  very  early,  a  bent  was  taken  and 
man  always  considered  himself  compelled  to  fight 
himself  to  satisfy  .  .  .  well,  what  was  it?  It  may 
have  been  at  first  evil  and  jealous  gods,  then 
later  on,  a  kind  but  severe  God  who  wants  men  to 
think  of  him  and,  if  not  that  they  should  torture 
themselves,  at  least  that  they  should  not  abandon 
themselves  altogether  to  themselves,  which  were  a 
manner  of  forgetting  him ;  or  again  conscience,  that 
is  an  inner  God,  God  come  within  ourselves,  a  rem- 
nant of  the  divinities  of  old,  a  theological  residue 
with  all  the  characteristics  of  the  Gods  of  old. 
These  characteristics  may  be  toned  down ;  they  may 
be  sometimes  identical  and  sometimes  exaggerated. 
This  inner  God  is  severe,  wants  us  to  think  of  him 
as  exacting,  evil  and  cruel ;  he  is  never  satisfied ;  he 
is  harsher,  more  susceptible  and  imperious  as  we 
give  him  more  ;  he  commands  categorically  and  with- 
out giving  his  reasons.     He  is  in  short,  God,  the  God 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        II3 

of  old;  he  has  merely  passed  from  outside  and  from 
afar  within  ourselves;  he  is  as  mysterious  as  the 
others  and  his  commands  are  "  mysteries."  Moral- 
ity is  nothing  else  but  transformed  religion  and  espe- 
cially Nemesis  transformed. 

Nietzsche  might  add  this:  do  not  tax  me  with 
sometimes  deriving  religion  from  morality,  as  pre- 
viously (a  morality  that  is  compelled  to  invent  reli- 
gion, not  to  be  absurd)  and  sometimes  deriving  mor- 
ality from  religion,  as  I  am  doing  now.  There  is  no 
contradiction,  as  you  can  see,  since  morality  and  reli- 
gion are  the  same  thing.  They  are  two  forms  of  the 
same  thought.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  now  this 
thought,  under  the  guise  of  religion,  creates  moral- 
ity, builds  it  up,  develops  it  and  leaves  it  to  humanity 
even  after  its  own  departure ;  and  now  under  the 
guise  of  morality,  needs  religion  to  support  itself,  to 
prove  itself,  to  give  itself  an  appearance  of  reason 
and,  in  turn,  creates  religion.  Religion  and  morality 
create  each  other  alternately  or  at  the  same  time. 
They  beget  each  other  reciprocally,  indefinitely, 
through  the  course  of  time  or,  in  better  words,  they 
are  consubstantial  with  each  other.  They  are,  if  you 
like,  one  and  the  same  divinity  in  two  persons,  which 
presents  to  humanity  one  of  its  two  persons,  then 
the  other.  The  first  always  brings  the  second  in  its 
wake,  and  the  second  ever  brings  back  and  is  ever 
compelled  to  bring  back  the  first.  Which  is  chrono- 
logically the  first  we  do  not  know,  and  very  likely 
can  not  know  because  it  is  almost  certain  that, 
chronologically  and  also  essentially,  there  is  neither 
first  nor  second,  and  that  they  exist  in  all  eternity. 


114  ON   READING    NIETZSCHE 

distinct  but  inseparable  and  indivisible,  being  at  heart 
one  and  the  same  thing. 

And  now  think  of  habit,  tradition  and  heredity. 
Think  that  morahty,  as  also  religion,  continues  and 
prolongs  itself  among  men  by  a  sort  of  atavistic 
fatality,  by  a  sort  of  submission  to  customs  and 
habits  with  the  result  that  "  cowardice  and  laziness 
are  the  first  conditions  of  morality  "  and  you  have 
in  all  its  instalments  the  history  of  morality  in  the 
human  world. 

This  morality,  whose  depth  we  have  seen  and  how 
vain  it  is,  whose  origins  we  have  seen  and  how  little 
respectable  they  are  —  is  it  good  at  least  in  its  re- 
sults, and  does  it  serve  any  purpose  ? 

Morality  depresses ;  it  makes  everything  vulgar, 
uglier  and  weaker  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word. 
It  demoralizes.  It  says  to  man :  "  sacrifice  yourself 
to  your  kind,"  and  then  leads  him  to  a  sort  of  suicide 
which  is  not  even  useful  to  his  kind,  of  whom  it 
spoke  to  him.  Morality  exhausts  in  the  heart  of 
man  all  the  springs  of  his  activity,  the  desires,  the 
passions,  the  egotism,  the  tendency  to  persevere  in 
the  being,  and  to  increase  one's  being  and  the  will 
to  power.  And  it  is  that  being,  now  dried  up  and 
enervated  which  morality  thinks  is  going  to  prove  of 
some  use  to  other  men.  Its  pretention  and  its  tac- 
tics consist  in  causing  the  activity  of  each  partic- 
ular individual  to  drift  towards  the  general  good. 
That  is  all  very  well  but  it  starts  by  breaking  all  the 
springs  of  that  same  activity.  It  turns  out  slaves 
and  expects  from  them  the  good  results  of  free 
work.     Worse  even,  it  turns  out  men-tools,  men- 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        II5 

machines.  It  seeks  to  endow  man  with  that  "  bHnd 
tenaciousness  that  is  the  typical  quahty  of  instru- 
ments and  tools  "  and  it  is  from  these  same  mate- 
rialized men,  from  these  men  fallen  from  their 
humanity  that  morality  expects  a  labor  that  may  be 
of  use  to  humanity. 

All  things  considered,  we  find  altruism  turning  in 
a  circle  or  venturing  in  a  blind  alley. 

It  turns  in  a  circle  in  advising  us  to  "  work  for 
others,  to  be  disinterested."  Who  said  we  were  to 
do  this?  The  others.  We  have  therefore  interest 
advising  us  to  practice  disinterestedness  and  clamor- 
ing for  it.  W'e  have  the  right  to  give  it  the  answer 
given  to  the  fo.x  whose  tail  had  been  cut  off :  "  Turn 
round,  if  you  please,  and  we  shall  answer  you."  In 
order  to  advise  disinterestedness,  one  must  be  dis- 
interested one's  self.  Altruism  "could  only  be  or- 
dered by  some  one  who  would  be,  thereby,  renounc- 
ing his  own  advantage,  and  who  would  be  risking  to 
bring  about  his  own  fall,  through  this  sacrifice  ex- 
acted from  individuals."  But  if  those  (neighbors, 
individuals  or  society)  that  are  asking  from  me  the 
sacrifice  of  myself,  derive,  or  merely  think  they  de- 
rive, a  great  advantage,  they  are  advising  disinter- 
estedness in  their  own  interest,  they  advise  altru- 
ism out  of  egotism  and  therefore  contradict  them- 
selves. Their  tongue  says:  "Sacrifice  yourself" 
and  their  example  says:  "Do  not  sacrifice  your- 
self." Whom  do  they  intend,  whom  do  they  hope, 
to  convince  ? 

So  much  for  the  circle.     Now  for  the  blind  alley. 

,You  say :  "  you  my  neighbors,  or  the  community, 


Il6  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

or  Society:  be  strong  for  my  benefit.  Very  well 
but  how  shall  I  do  it,  by  being  weak  for  your  bene- 
fit? begin  by  destroying  all  your  strength  in  your- 
selves, and  then  be  you  strong  for  my  service. 
Have  no  passions;  but  be  passionate  for  my  bene- 
fit. Do  not  tend  towards  persevering  in  the  being 
but  apply  all  your  energies  to  cause  that  I  should 
persevere  in  mine.  Annihilate  yourselves  to  bring 
me  strength.  Be  each  of  you  a  nothing  in  order 
that,  from  all  the  nothings  that  you  will  compose 
there  may  be  an  immense  strength  that  shall  be 
myself.  There  is  the  blind  alley.  Altruism  tells 
man  to  walk  ahead  after  it  has  erected  a  wall  in 
front  of  him.  If  we  change  the  metaphor,  it  tells 
him  to  walk  ahead  after  it  has  cut  off  the  tendons  of 
his  legs. 

It  is  not  always  altruism  that  speaks  with  the 
voice  of  morality;  sometimes  morality  will  speak 
to  the  individual  in  the  interest  of  the  individual. 
It  says  strange,  disastrous  things  to  him.  Some- 
times it  will  say  this :  "  Toil  ye  stubbornly  and 
furiously.  That  will  bring  ye  to  begin  with  riches 
and  honors ;  then  it  will  safeguard  ye  against  pas- 
sions and  boredom.  These  are  great  advantages." 
It  is  not  easy  to  see  where  lay  these  vaunted  great 
advantages.  In  truth,  that  "  blind  tenaciousness  " 
may  somewhat  dispel  boredom  but  the  latter  is  most 
subtle  and  knows  very  well  how  to  slip  through  the 
intervals  of  work.  It  may  somewhat  allay  the 
passions,  but  these  are  themselves  most  tenacious 
and  they  disturb  one  even  in  the  middle  of  one's 
work  in  a  worse  and  more  pernicious  way  than  if 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES  :      MOR-\LITY        II7 

they  had  been  indulged.  Especially,  this  blind  and 
maniac  tenaciousness  "  deprives  the  organs  of  that 
delicacy  with  the  help  of  which  riches  and  honors 
could  procure  enjoyment."  Moreover  these  alleged 
radical  remedies  against  boredom  and  passions  blunt 
the  senses  at  the  same  time  and  make  them  re- 
luctant to  feeling  any  new  excitement.  "  The  most 
active  period,  that  is  our  own,  does  not  know  what 
to  do  with  all  its  gold  and  with  all  its  activity  be- 
yond piling  up  ever  more  gold  and  ever  more  activ- 
ity, because  more  genius  is  required  for  spending 
than  for  acquiring.  And  we  shall  end  by  growing 
heartily  sick  of  them."  Yes,  "  we  are  now  ashamed 
to  rest,  we  feel  remorse  for  our  moments  of  medi- 
tation .  .  .  we  live  as  would  someone  who  feared 
always  to  let  something  slip  by.  Rather  do  anything 
than  be  doing  nothing.  That  is  a  principle.  The 
principle  is  however  a  dodge  used  to  deal  the  death 
blow  to  superior  taste.  ...  It  will  soon  come  to  this 
that  one  will  no  longer  follow  an  inclination  towards 
contemplative  life,  no  longer  walk  out  in  the  com- 
pany of  one's  thoughts  or  of  friends  who  are  not 
self -despising  and  endowed  with  an  evil  con- 
science. .  .  ."  There  you  have  one  of  the  fine  out- 
comes, one  of  the  latest  to  date,  of  morality. 

When  morality  is  not  urging  us  to  a  rage  for 
activity,  which  degrades  the  fine  human  nature,  it 
leads  to  other  kinds  of  debasement.  Most  often,  it 
leads  to  mediocrity  in  both  good  and  evil,  to  some 
form  of  cowardly  temperament,  to  that  moderation 
in  all  things  which  already  the  ancients,  albeit  not 
those  of  the  heroic  period,  to  be  sure,  had  made  into 


Il8  ONf   READING  NIETZSCHE 

a  virtue  and  which  is  a  gray,  colorless,  ugly  and 
repugnant  thing.  This  small  bourgeois  morality, 
please  note  that  it  is  the  true  one,  advises  what 
morality  has  so  far  discovered  as  the  best,  the  most 
reasonable  according  to  its  reason  and  the  most 
logically  in  agreement  with  itself.  That  morality 
seems  to  have  for  supreme  aim  merely  to  bring  a 
good  night's  sleep  to  every  man  at  the  close  of  every 
day.  Such  is  the  noble  aim  to  which  morality 
aspires  and  to  which  it  leads  mankind.  One  may 
well  ask  whether  the  great  rule  of  human  conduct 
can  truly  be  one  that  has  no  nobler  end  than  this 
and  that  attains,  or  even  desires,  no  more  glorious 
result. 

"  People  commended  unto  Zarathustra  a  certain 
wise  man,  as  one  who  could  discourse  well  about 
sleep  and  virtue :  greatly  was  he  honored  and  re- 
warded for  it,  and  all  the  youths  sat  before  his  chair. 
To  him  went  Zarathustra,  and  sat  among  the  youths 
before  his  chair.  And  thus  spake  the  wise  man: 
"  respect  and  modesty  in  presence  of  sleep.  That  is 
the  first  thing.  Go  out  of  the  way  of  all  that  sleep 
badly  and  keep  awake  at  night.  Modest  is  even 
the  thief  in  presence  of  sleep:  he  always  stealeth 
softly  through  the  night.  Immodest,  however,  is 
the  night-watchman;  immodestly  he  carrieth  his 
horn.  No  small  art  is  it  to  sleep ;  it  is  necessary  for 
that  purpose  to  keep  awake  all  day.  Ten  times  a 
day  must  thou  overcome  thyself :  that  causeth  whole- 
some weariness,  and  is  poppy  to  the  soul.  Ten  times 
must  thou  reconcile  again  with  thyself;  for  over- 
coming is  bitterness,  and  badly  sleep  the  unrecon- 


CRITICISING   THE   OBSTACLES:       MORALITY        Ilt^ 

ciled.  Ten  truths  must  thou  find  during  the  day ; 
otherwise  wilt  thou  seek  truth  during  the  night, 
and  thy  soul  will  have  been  hungry.  Ten  times  must 
thou  laugh  during  the  day,  and  be  cheerful ;  other- 
wise thy  stomach,  the  father  of  affliction,  will  dis- 
turb thee  in  the  night.  Few  people  know  it,  but 
one  must  have  all  the  virtues  in  order  to  sleep  well. 
Shall  I  bear  false  witness?  Shall  I  commit  adul- 
tery? Shall  I  covet  my  neighbor's  maid-servant? 
All  that  would  ill  accord  with  good  sleep.  And 
even  if  one  have  all  the  virtues,  there  is  still  one 
thing  needful:  to  send  the  virtues  themselves  to 
sleep  at  the  right  time  —  that  they  may  not  quarrel 
with  one  another,  the  good  females.  And  about 
thee,  thou  unhappy  one!  Peace  with  God  and  thy 
neighbor:  so  desireth  good  sleep.  And  peace  also 
with  thy  neighbor's  devil.  Otherwise  it  will  haunt 
thee  in  the  night.  Honor  to  the  government,  and 
obedience,  and  also  to  the  crooked  government !  So 
desireth  good  sleep.  How  can  I  help  it,  if  power 
like  to  walk  on  crooked  legs?  He  that  Icadeth  his 
sheep  to  the  greenest  pasture,  shall  always  be  for 
me  the  best  shepherd:  so  doth  it  accord  with  good 
sleep.  Many  honors  I  want  not,  nor  great  treas- 
ures :  they  excite  the  spleen.  But  it  is  bad  sleeping, 
without  a  good  name  and  a  little  treasure.  A  small 
company  is  more  welcome  to  me  than  a  bad  one :  but 
they  must  come  and  go  at  the  right  time.  So  doth 
it  accord  with  good  sleep.  Well,  also,  do  the  poor 
in  spirit  please  me:  they  promote  sleep.  Blessed 
are  they,  especially  if  one  always  give  in  to  them. 
Thus  passeth  the  day  unto  the   virtuous.     When 


I20  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

night  cometh,  then  take  I  good  care  not  to  sum- 
mon sleep.  It  disliketh  to  be  summoned  —  sleep, 
the  lord  of  the  virtues !  But  I  think  of  what  I  have 
done  and  thought  during  the  day.  Thus  ruminat- 
ing, patient  as  a  cow,  I  ask  myself :  '  What  were 
thy  ten  overcomings?  And  what  were  the  ten  rec- 
onciliations, and  the  ten  truths,  and  the  ten  laugh- 
ters with  which  my  heart  enjoyed  itself?'  Thus 
pondering,  and  cradled  by  forty  thoughts,  it  over- 
taketh  me  all  at  once  —  sleep,  the  unsummoned,  the 
lord  of  the  virtues.  Sleep  tappeth  on  mine  eye,  and 
it  turneth  heavy.  Sleep  toucheth  my  mouth,  and  it 
remaineth  open.  Verily,  on  soft  soles  doth  it  come 
to  me,  the  dearest  of  thieves,  and  stealeth  from  me 
my  thoughts :  stupid  do  I  then  stand,  like  this  aca- 
demic chair.  But  not  much  longer  do  I  then  stand  : 
I  lay  me  already." 

When  Zarathustra  heard  the  wise  man  thus 
speak,  he  laughed  in  his  heart:  for  thereby  had  a 
light  dawned  upon  him.  And  thus  spake  he  to  his 
heart :  "  A  fool  seemeth  this  wise  man  with  his 
forty  thoughts,  but  I  believe  he  knoweth  well  how  to 
sleep.  Happy  even  is  he  who  liveth  near  this  wise 
man !  Such  sleep  is  contagious  —  even  through  a 
thick  wall,  it  is  contagious.  A  magic  resideth  even 
in  his  academic  chair.  And  not  in  vain  did  the 
youths  sit  before  the  preacher  of  virtue.  His  wis- 
dom is  to  keep  awake  in  order  to  sleep  well.  And 
verily,  if  life  had  no  sense,  and  had  I  to  choose 
nonsense,  this  would  be  the  desirablest  nonsense  for 
me  also.  Now  know  I  well  what  people  sought 
formerly  above  all  else  when  they  sought  teachers 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        121 

of  virtue.  Good  sleep  they  sought  for  themselves, 
and  poppy-head  virtues  to  promote  it.  To  all  those 
belauded  sages  of  the  academic  chairs,  wisdom  was 
sleep  without  dreams:  they  knew  no  higher  signifi- 
cance of  life." 

It  is  very  likely  therefore  that  morality  is  a  nar- 
cotic of  which  humanity,  tired  of  the  tumult  of  pas- 
sions, has  felt  the  need  to  arm  itself  at  some  given 
time.  This  is,  of  course,  no  reason  why  it  should  be 
proscribed.  Yet  it  gives  it  no  title  to  glory,  and  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  worship  it.  It  seems  evi- 
dent that  the  constitution  of  morality  was  a  first 
step  in  the  decadence  of  humanity.  Morality  has 
doubtlessly  existed  at  all  times,  since  we  have  seen 
that  it  loses  itself  in  religion,  that  it  creates  it  and 
is  created  by  it.  Yet  there  was  a  moment,  perhaps 
one  such  moment  for  each  nation,  when  morality  was 
created,  when  it  became  a  thing  apart,  a  definite  in- 
stitution and  understood  as  such  by  almost  every- 
body (the  tiine  of  Socrates  among  the  Greeks).  At 
that  moment  surely  decadence  began.  There  is  a 
time  when  weariness  turns  back  on  life,  when  the 
"  instinct  of  degeneracy  "  turns  against  the  will  to 
live  with  a  "  secret  thirst  for  vengeance."  Such  is 
either  the  time  of  Socrates,  or  that  of  Christianity, 
or  that  of  Schopenhauer's  philosophy,  or,  in  a  way 
already,  that  of  Platonism.  It  is  even  "  the  whole 
of  idealism."  At  length  there  always  comes  a  time 
when  man  wishes  to  escape  life,  when  he  ceases  to 
agree  to  it  and  to  affirm  that  it  is  good,  including  the 
passions  that  are  the  very  shapes  of  life,  a  time  when 
he  ceases  to  affirm  the  very  forces  of  life,  including 


122  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  sorrows  that  are  Hfe's  ransom,  are  inseparable 
from  it  and  constitute  its  sanctions  and  conditions. 
Then  it  is  that  morahty  is  established  and  that  it  is 
well  understood  to  be  established,  and  that  all  men 
have  at  least  a  confused  feeling  that  it  is  established. 

In  other  words,  morality  is  nothing  else  but  a  sign 
of  weakness,  cowardice  and  sickness  in  humanity. 
It  is  a  sort  of  general  and  contagious  neurasthenia. 
Because  that  illness  has  deep  roots,  its  own  regular 
bearing  and  its  hygiene,  there  is  in  a  way  some  gen- 
tility about  it,  and  it  has  become  accepted  as  if  it 
were  something  good  and  healthy.  Its  causes  are 
its  justification.  Why  live  passionately,  why  live 
intensely  since  we  are  weak  and  powerless  worms? 
Let  us  live  according  to  our  nature.  The  regular 
signs  of  that  illness  are  taken  for  laws  and  rules  of 
conduct.  One  becomes  inured  to  seeing  humanity 
bending,  from  stage  to  stage,  its  steps  towards  an 
ever  purer,  ever  stricter,  ever  more  correct  moral- 
ity. This  progress  in  the  weakening,  in  "  Progress  " 
itself,  seems  to  be  a  most  venerable  ascent.  Finally 
because  that  illness  has  its  own  hygiene  and  regime, 
both  regime  and  hygiene  are  looked  upon  as  vir- 
tues and  those  that  prescribe  them  as  teachers  of 
virtue.  It  is  nevertheless  a  disease  taking  roots, 
settling  itself  down,  and  developing  itself  and  yet  we 
cultivate  it  carefully  and  it  becomes  a  diathesis. 
It  looks  as  if  man  were  only  fully  reassured  and 
satisfied  when  it  has  become  incurable. 

One  hardly  knows  why  it  does,  but  morality  holds 
a  real  hypnotizing  sway  over  the  minds  of  even  the 
thinkers,  especially,  I  should  perhaps  say,  over  the 


CRITICISING   THE  OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        123 

minds  of  the  thinkers.  It  is  apparently  intangible. 
People  will  discuss  God,  the  super-natural  world  or 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  but  one  does  not  discuss 
morality.  There  is  more ;  no  matter  to  what  philo- 
sophical party  one  may  belong,  one  wishes  to  end  in 
morality,  and  to  make  it  plain  that  one  does  get  there 
in  the  end.  No  matter  what  philosophical  system 
one  may  invent  or  support,  one  finds  a  way  in  the 
end  to  bend  it  towards  morality,  and  to  prove  that 
it  gets  there.  There  is  still  more ;  one  always  makes 
it  a  point  of  honor  to  prove  that  one's  own  fa- 
vored system  leads  to  morality  by  some  better  way 
than  does  any  other,  that  it  sustains  morality,  en- 
tails it  and  contains  it  in  its  own  folds  more  and 
better  than  any  other.  There  is  this  also;  in  order 
to  prove  its  own  excellence,  each  system  asserts  it- 
self to  be  eminently  in  agreement  with  morality.  In 
order  to  prove  the  others  bad,  it  fancies  that  it  needs 
but  to  prove  that  they  lead  to  immoral  conclu- 
sions. The  words  that  condemn  the  others  are  the 
same  that  we  use  in  sel  f -apology ;  the  supreme 
words  are  always :  "  morality  is  at  stake." 

Morality  is  a  sanctuary;  it  also  is  a  criterion  that 
is  thought  infallible  and  a  touchstone  that  is  con- 
sidered absolute.  "  In  presence  of  morality  we  are 
not  allowed  to  think,  let  alone  to  speak ;  we  must 
obey.  .  .  .  To  go  so  far  as  to  criticise  morality ; 
morality  as  a  problem,  to  hold  morality  as  proble- 
matic, why,  it  is  .  .  .  immoral." 

This  form  of  hypnose  must  be  analyzed.  Mor- 
ality seduces  and  fascinates  because  it  knows  how  to 
"  arouse  the  enthusiasm."     It  persuades  people  that 


124  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

its  own  is  a  holy  cause ;  that  to  consecrate  one's  self 
to  its  service  has  all  the  beauty  o£  a  sacrifice,  and 
that  in  serving  it,  one  is  willingly  forgetting  and  neg- 
lecting one's  own  interests.  It  persuades  people  that 
he  who  follows  it  is  something  between  a  hero  and 
a  saint.  It  insinuates  that  whoever  teaches  it,  and 
especially  whoever  sets  it  up  on  its  own  basis  again 
after  it  has  been  shaken  —  and  that  is  always  hap- 
pening —  has  saved  the  world.  Thus  it  "  cripples 
the  critical  will "  or  else  "  attracts  it  to  its  own 
side  "  and  into  its  own  camp,  or  else  it  "  causes  it 
to  turn  against  itself  with  the  result  that  the  spirit 
of  criticism,  like  the  scorpion,  sinks  its  sting  in  its 
own  body." 

In  short,  morality  is  the  Circe  of  the  Philosophers. 
It  changes  them  into  animals  that  are  harmless  to 
itself  but,  unfortunately,  also  useless  to  anyone.  It 
makes  them  deviate  from  their  straightest  paths. 
It  makes  them  close  or  lower  their  eyes  in  its  pres- 
ence. Or,  when  they  dare  to  gaze  upon  it,  morality 
dazzles  them  to  such  an  extent  that  they  modify 
their  own  ideas  so  far  as  it  is  concerned,  and  with 
regard  to  its  wishes.  By  means  of  clever  windings, 
it  causes  them  to  become  mere  rivulets  that  flow 
towards  morality  and  lose  themselves  in  it. 

Hence  comes  the  fact  that  "  it  is  to  *  good  and 
evil '  that  people  have  until  now  given  the  least  re- 
flection." This  is  appalling  when  one  thinks  of  it. 
It  is  certain  that  good  and  evil,  the  rule  and  influ- 
ence of  habits,  are  the  most  important.  But  moral- 
ity has  made  itself  so  venerable ;  it  has  terrorized 
the  minds  and  made  itself  intangible  to  such  an  ex- 


CRITICISING    THE   OBSTACLES:      MORALITY        I25 

tent  that  it  has  become  barren.  Through  refusal  to 
let  it  be  discussed,  niorahty  has  made  it  impossible 
for  any  one  to  study  it.  It  has  made  itself  so  much 
of  a  sacred  place  that  it  has  become  a  desert. 

We  must  at  last  look  it  well  in  the  face  and  see 
that  it  is  a  prejudice  that  has  been  able,  owing  to 
a  special  privilege,  to  gain  the  respect  of  the  most 
daring  minds  until  it  had  them  stupefied,  that  it  is 
an  uncontrolled  prejudice  which  has  made  itself  un- 
controllable, yet  a  prejudice  that  deserves  that  name 
more  than  any  other  since  it  alone  has  been  able 
to  avoid  almost  all  analysis  and  scrutiny. 

It  is  also  a  noxious  prejudice  because  as  we  saw, 
it  lowers  mankind,  enervates  and  emasculates  it, 
turns  it  into  a  timid,  fearful,  regular  and  correct 
animal,  one  of  a  herd,  quite  the  opposite  of  what  it 
would  well  seem  primitive  man  was  and  of  what  it 
seems  that  man,  whose  brow  is  raised  towards  the 
heavens,  should  be. 

Yes,  here  again  we  have  an  enemy  of  life  in 
strength  and  beauty ;  here  again  is  an  obstacle  to 
life  in  strength  and  beauty ;  here  again  is  something 
which  is  opposed  and  more  opposed  than  everything 
else,  to  man  becoming  strong  and  doing  beautiful 
things.  An  artist  must  be  the  born  enemy  of  moral- 
ity and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  artists  are,  instinctively, 
very  often  immoralists.  They  are  right.  Morality 
is  organized  against  the  force  and  the  beauty  of 
mankind.  Of  course,  it  is  itself  a  force,  but  a 
weakening  and  disfiguring  force.  One  must  fight 
morality  with  all  the  love  one  feels  and  should 
feel  for  strength  and  beauty. 


CHAPTER  Vlir. 

THE  THEORY. 

Having  reached  this  point,  Nietzsche  collects  his 
thoughts  and  gathers  himself  up,  so  to  speak. 
Everything  in  which  men  generally  place  faith  he 
has  now  denied  and  rejected  as  evil:  reason,  reli- 
gion, science  and  morality.  Would  he  rank  then 
as  a  nihilist  or  a  sceptic?  He  must  have  asked 
himself  that  question,  and  answered  in  the  same 
breath  that  he  was  certainly  neither.  He  is  as  little 
of  a  nihilist  as  one  can  be.  He  accepts  everything, 
he  subscribes  to  everything,  he  agrees  to  everything, 
he  embraces  everything  with  passion,  joy  and  en- 
thusiasm. Far,  far  beyond  the  quarrels  of  pessi- 
mism and  optimism,  which  he  despises,  far  beyond 
optimism  and  pessimism,  which  he  finds  equally  nar- 
row, with  an  optimism  —  if  we  like  to  use  this  term 
for  the  lack  of  another  —  or  with  affirmation,  if  one 
will  accept  this  word,  which  includes  both  optimism 
and  pessimism,  Nietzsche  valiantly  accepts  the 
world  with  its  beauty  and  its  ugliness,  its  joys  and 
sorrows,  its  pleasures  and  its  strictness,  its  smiles 
and  its  atrocities.  He  accepts  it  as  something  that 
must  be  loved  to  ecstasy  in  a  beautiful  Dionysian 
delirium,  and  whose  development,  expansion  and  in- 
definite embellishment  one  must  desire.     He  accepts 

126 


THE  THEORY  12/ 

it  as  something  that  one  must  desire  to  be  ever 
whole,  ever  aUve,  ever  Hvely,  ever  full  of  a  more 
intense  and  a  more  reviving  life. 

What  displeases  him  sometimes  is  that  this  world 
seems  to  be  growing  old,  and  that  certain  ideas  with 
which  it  was  smitten  and  certain  sentiments  which 
delighted  it,  render  it  senile  and  risk  to  render  it 
decrepit.  There  is  nothing  of  the  nihilist  in  these 
dispositions  of  the  mind. 

Is  he  a  sceptic  ?  One  may  not  be  perhaps  a  scep- 
tic merely  because  one  does  not  believe  what  the 
majority  of  men  believe.  Nietzsche  feels  strongly 
that  he  believes  in  something  and  that  there  is  a  deep 
faith.  He  believes  in  the  Greeks  of  the  days  before 
Socrates.  Well,  that  is  something.  It  is  to  believe 
in  the  beauty  and  the  nobility  of  the  human  race. 
It  is  to  believe  that  man  may  realize  an  ideal  of 
liberty,  free  strength,  beauty,  grace,  nobility  and 
eur}-thmy.  It  is  to  believe  that  man  is  an  excep- 
tional animal,  not  a  reasonable  one  as  some  fancy, 
not  a  mystical  one  as  a  few  will  advance,  not  a 
moral  one  as  so  many  will  believe,  nor  anti-natural 
as  some  persist  in  alleging ;  but  that  he  is  strong  and 
beautiful  and  made  to  create  strength  and  beauty,  a 
beauty  below  which  one  may  always  feel  a  manifes- 
tation of  strength,  and  a  strength  always  following 
the  mysterious  laws  but  laws  that  he  feels  of 
etemal  beauty.  Such  is  the  faith  of  Nietzsche.  He 
is  not  a  sceptic.  He  is  not  a  sceptic  in  this  that 
he  is  not  without  a  faith  or  without  a  will.  These 
are  the  two  essential  ways  in  which  one  is  a  sceptic. 
He  does  not  believe  in  nothing,  he  does  not  give 


128  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

himself  up  or  relax  or  let  his  arms  drop  nor  does  he 
abstain  from  action.  Well,  this  faith  of  his  —  he 
wishes  to  spread  it;  and  the  object  of  this  law  —  he 
wants  to  realize  it. 

One  word  will  express  it  all.  He  wants  to  create 
a  freed  humanity,  to  restore  it  to  its  true  nature. 
He  wants  a  humanity  freed  from  morality,  from 
religion,  from  the  superstition  of  science  and  that 
of  reason;  he  wants  to  restore  it  to  the  strong  in- 
stincts and  the  strong  passions  that  made  human- 
ity great  and  beautiful  in  its  green  and  luxuriant 
youth.  The  eulogy  of  the  passions  —  there  you 
have  all  the  affirmative  Nietzsche.  The  passions 
are  good.  What  is  their  common  root?  Egotism. 
Well,  egotism  is  good. 

First  of  all  it  can  neither  be  uprooted  nor  avoided 
and  it  were  folly  to  attempt  to  extirpate  it  or  to  free 
one's  self  from  it.  Moreover  it  is  an  excellent,  a 
holy  thing.  They  tell  you:  love  your  neighbor. 
When  one  analyzes  that  thought  one  sees  that  it  is 
false  to  the  point  of  childishness  and  that  it  is  a 
weakness.  This  love  of  your  neighbor  is  but  "  a 
bad  love  of  yourself,"  because  you  go  "  to  your 
neighbor  to  fly  from  yourself  and  this  is  what  you 
want  to  turn  into  a  virtue  but  I  can  see  through  your 
disinterestedness."  What  you  are  seeking  in  your 
neighbor  is  somebody  who  will  support  you  because 
you  do  not  know  how  to  support  yourself  and  some- 
body who  will  love  you  because  you  cannot  love 
yourself  enough  and  in  the  way  you  should.  "  I 
would  like  to  see  every  kind  of  neighbors  and  the 
neighbors  of  those  neighbors  becoming  unbearable 


THE   THEORY  I 29 

to  you  because  then  you  would  be  compelled  to 
make  of  yourself  a  friend  and  a  friend  with  a  strong 
and  overflowing  heart."  But  you  approach  the 
others  to  speak  well  of  yourself,  to  bring  them  to 
speaking  well  of  yourself  and  to  draw  upon  what 
you  have  heard  them  say  to  think  yet  more  of  your- 
self, "^'ou  approach  others  to  forget  yourself  or  to 
seek  yourself,  and  to  both  the  instincts  together  that 
is  to  forget  the  man  you  are  in  reality  and  to  seek 
the  man  you  pretend  to  be.  You  approach  others  to 
cultivate  the  most  evil  side  of  your  egotism  and  to 
neglect  what  there  might  be  in  it  that  is  excellent 
and  fruitful  if  it  were  cultivated.  No,  I  am  not  ad- 
vising you  to  love  your  neighbor.  I  would  much 
rather  advise  you  to  love  that  which  is  furthest. 
"  Higher  than  love  for  our  neighbor  is  love  of  the 
furthest  and  future  ones;  higher  still  than  love  for 
mankind  is  love  for  things  and  phantoms.  This 
phantom  that  runneth  on  before  thee,  the  future, 
brother,  this  phantom  is  fairer  than  thou.  Why 
shouldest  thou  not  lend  it  thy  flesh  and  thy  bones? 
But  thou  fearest  and  runnest  unto  thy  neighbor. 
My  brethren,  I  do  not  advise  you  to  neighbor 
love ;  I  advise  you  to  furthest  love." —  Thus  spake 
Zarathustra. 

One  could  hardly  believe,  in  spite  of  the  pain 
La  Rochefoucauld  took  to  warn  us  against  such 
errors,  how  many  things  there  are  we  find  disin- 
terested but  are  really  pure  selfishness,  how  many 
things  are  set  down  in  the  column  of  altruism  are 
but  "self-love"  pure  and  simple.  But  self-love  in 
disguise  and  which,  thus  disguising  itself,  becomes 


130  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

perverted.  That  self-love  would  be  much  better;  it 
would  be  good,  excellent  and  capable  of  the  very 
best  results  if  it  did  not  choose  to  disguise  itself,  per- 
vert itself,  and  if  it  did  not  fall  to  pieces  by  thus 
deluding  others  and  itself  as  well  as  to  its  own  na- 
ture. Our  neighbor  love  —  what  is  it  but  an  im- 
perious desire  for  possession,  for  a  new  ownership? 
Our  love  for  science,  what  is  it  but  a  desire  for 
novelty?  "Gradually  we  weary  of  what  is  old, 
of  what  we  possess  with  certainty  and  we  begin 
again  to  stretch  out  our  hands."  Thus  the  most 
beautiful  scenery  in  which  we  have  been  living  for 
three  months  inspires  us  with  nothing  but  the  de- 
sire to  see  another  one.  Man  is  the  "  Don  Juan  of 
Knowledge."  Renan,  who  more  than  any  other 
man  in  the  world  was  the  Don  Juan  of  Knowledge, 
complained  of  the  restlessness  of  his  mind,  which 
after  he  had  found  truth  caused  him  still  to  seek  it. 

What  is  pity?  It  is  a  desire  for  possession. 
When  we  see  somebody  suffer  we  willingly  seize  that 
opportunity  given  us  to  take  up  someone,  to  make 
him  ours.  This  charitable  man  calls  love  "  that  de- 
sire for  a  new  possession  awakened  in  him  and  he 
takes  his  pleasure  as  if  he  were  in  presence  of  a 
new  conquest  that  beckons  him."  That  is  what 
lay  at  the  basis  of  this  religion  of  mercy  with 
which  they  dun  our  ears  and  to  which  people  would 
like  to  convert  us.  The  attempt  is  vain  because  we 
know  "  too  well  the  little  young  men  and  the  hysteri- 
cal little  women  who  need  it  to-day  to  use  it  as  a 
veil  and  an  ornament." 

And  it  is  especially  sexual  love  that  reveals  it- 


THE   THEORY  I3I 

self  most  clearly  as  a  manifestation  of  an  ardent 
desire  for  ownership,  that  is  to  say,  as  intense  sel- 
fishness.^ "  He  who  loves  wants  to  possess  to  him- 
self the  object  of  his  desire.  ?Ie  wants  to  hold 
absolute  power  over  both  the  soul  and  the  body  of 
that  person ;  he  wants  to  be  loved  alone  and  to  in- 
habit the  other  soul,  to  rule  therein,  and  he  looks 
upon  this  as  the  loftiest  and  most  admirable  thing. 
If  we  consider  that  it  means  nothing  else  but  the 
exclusion  of  the  whole  world  from  something  preci- 
ous, from  a  happiness  and  a  pleasure,  if  we  con- 
sider that  the  man  that  loves  aims  at  depriving  and 
making  poorer  all  his  competitors,  that  he  seeks  to 
become  the  dragon  of  his  treasure  just  as  if  he  were 
the  most  indiscreet  and  selfish  of  all  conquerors  and 
exploiters;  finally  if  we  consider  that  to  a  man  in 
love  the  rest  of  the  world  seems  indifferent,  color- 
less and  worthless  and  that  he  is  ready  to  give  up 
anything  for  his  love,  to  disturb  any  kind  of  order, 
to  relegate  to  the  background  all  the  interests,  one 
must  be  surprised  that  this  savage  avidity,  this  in- 
iquity of  sexual  love,  has  been  glorified  and  divinized 
to  such  an  extent  and  at  all  times.  One  must  be 
surprised  that  from  this  *  love '  one  could  have 
caused  to  issue  the  idea  of  Love  as  opposed  to  sel- 
fishness, while  it  is  very  likely  the  most  natural 
expression  of  selfishness."  True  love  should  not 
know  jealousy.     That  would  be  its  sign  and  if  it 

1  La  Rochefoucauld.  Maxims,  LXVIII :  "Love  is  in  the 
soul  a  passion  to  rule,  in  the  minds  a  sympathy  and  in  the 
body  a  hidden  and  delicate  desire  to  possess  what  one 
loves,  after  many  mysteries." 


132  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

exists  it  is  the  mark  thereof  and  there  can  be  none 
other.  But  lovers  know  so  well  that  love  without 
jealousy  does  not  exist  or  hardly  exists,  that  it  is 
precisely  jealousy  which  they  set  up  as  the  sign  and 
mark  of  love  and  that  they  always  say :  "  You  are 
not  jealous,  you  don't  love  me."  While  good  psy- 
chology should  cause  us  to  say :  you  are  not  jealous ; 
you  do  not  love  yourself.  Of  course  they  know 
very  well,  being  good  psychologists  in  their  fash- 
ion, that  is  to  say  practical,  that  he  who  is  not 
jealous  is  very  seldom  the  man  that  makes  "  abstrac- 
tion of  himself  so  much  does  he  adore  but  in  al- 
most every  case  the  man,  having  possessed,  be- 
comes indifferent  to  his  present  possession  and  anx- 
ious for  a  new  one  " ;  and,  in  the  practice,  they  are 
right.  Jealousy  indicates  a  desire  to  possess  and 
to  possess  alone.  If  it  is  a  sign  of  love  it  shows  that 
love  is  but  an  instinct  for  ownership.  It  is  rather 
strange  that  this  instinct  for  ownership  should  have 
been  called  love  instead  of  being  called  selfishness 
or  greed  or  avidity  (avaritia).  But  "those  that 
established  this  current  expression  in  the  languages 
were  apparently  those  that  did  not  possess  and  that 
desired  to  possess.  They  have  always  been  the 
most  numerous.  Those,  on  the  contrary,  that  have 
been  favored  in  this  domain  with  much  possession 
and  satiety  have,  every  now  and  then,  allowed  an  in- 
vective to  escape  their  lips,  an  invective  against  the 
*  furious  demon,'  as  Sophocles  said,  the  most  lov- 
able and  the  most  beloved  of  all  the  Athenians ;  but 
Eros  would  always  laugh  at  these  slanderers  who 
were  precisely  his  greatest  favorites." 


THE   THEORY  I33 

We  could  thus  review  all  the  passions,  all  the  in- 
clinations and  all  the  z'irtiies  which  are  by  unanim- 
ous consent  the  cortege,  the  court,  the  household, 
the  family  or  the  children  of  altruism,  and  which 
at  bottom  are  nothing  but  disguises  of  selfishness  or 
perhaps,  and  that  is  the  most  favorable  view  pos- 
sible, transformations  of  selfishness.  There  is  no 
need  to  do  it  since  it  has  been  done  by  La  Roche- 
foucauld. 

This,  however,  is  my  point.  La  Rochefoucauld 
analyzed  the  substitutes  of  selfishness  in  order  to 
flay  them  by  bringing  them  back  to  selfishness  for 
he  held  selfishness  as  a  thing  to  be  condemned,  hated 
and  proscribed.  That  was  wrong.  The  truth  is 
that  selfishness  is  hateful  in  its  substitutes,  its  dis- 
guises, or  if  you  like,  its  transformations,  but  very 
good  in  itself,  excellent  in  itself.  What  we  should 
do  is  to  fight  all  the  disguises  of  selfishness,  to  shame 
them,  to  show  them  up  as  being  stupid,  ridiculous, 
hateful  and  fatal.  Then,  having  led  mankind  away 
from  them,  we  should  bring  it  to  pure  selfishness 
which  is  good  and  get  men  to  become  accustomed 
to  blush  before  all  the  disguises  of  selfishness,  and 
no  longer  to  blush  before  selfishness  itself.  In 
other  words,  selfishness  tried  to  get  itself  accepted 
and,  to  do  that,  began  to  play  all  sorts  of  parts  all 
over  the  world.  It  plays  them  badly  and  the  dra- 
matic critic  recognizes  it  fully  through  every  one 
of  them.  We  must  persuade  selfishness  that  it  is 
more  beautiful  in  its  natural  state,  that  it  is  also 
more  fruitful  and  useful,  that  humanity  needs  it 
but,  in  its  purest  state,  not  in  the  role  of  disguises. 


134  C>N   READING   NIETZSCHE 

which  it  seeks,  or  in  the  mixtures,  which  it  makes 
of  itself  with  other  things,  or  in  these  strange  and 
unhealthy  combinations  which,  it  delights  to  enter. 

These  combinations  —  do  you  see  them  ?  They 
are  most  often  frigid  virtues.  What  is  moderation  ? 
A  caution  that  is  nothing  else  but  cowardice,  that  is 
the  lowest  form  of  selfishness,  blended  perhaps  with 
a  little  care  not  to  hurt,  clash  with,  or  incommodate 
others.  Now,  that  is  not  beautiful,  and  there  is 
nothing  in  it  to  boast  about.  Moreover,  it  is  mod- 
eration that  places  humanity  in  a  state  of  general 
platitude,  universal  mediocrity^  unanimous  indo- 
lence and  of  prostration  before  small  tyrants,  them- 
selves no  less  moderate,  almost  as  mediocre,  and 
quite  as  insipid.  To  have  made  a  virtue  of  moder- 
ation shows  that  there  is  a  decay  and  almost  a  de- 
liquescence of  the  human  race. 

What  is  pity?  It  is  an  emotion  that  takes  hold 
of  you  in  presence  of  misfortunes  in  which  you 
yourself  may  fall.  Hodie  tibi;  eras  mihi.  It  is 
foresight  or  I  should  say  foreknowledge,  that  is  to 
say,  a  selfishness  that  can  see  unto  the  morrow.  It 
is  hard  to  find  in  this  such  an  admirable  virtue. 
Moreover  pity  enervates  man  by  persuading  him 
that  he  has  fulfilled  his  duty  when  he  has  shed  a 
tear  upon  the  fate  of  another  man,  that  he  has 
done  his  duty  when  he  has  given  a  little  of  his 
superfluous  to  some  unfortunate  being.  It  ener- 
vates him  by  throwing  him  back  into  a  gentle  quiet- 
ness as  soon  as  he  has  paid  that  ridiculous  tribute 
to  humanity.  It  enervates  him  by  leading  him  away 
from  all  great,  strong,  civilizing,  ascending  actions, 


THE   THEORY  I35 

actions  which  might  cause  tears  to  be  shed  or  trou- 
ble the  general  quietness  and  your  own,  perhaps 
even  cost  a  number  of  human  beings  their  lives. 
Pity  is  the  bom  enemy  of  heroism.  You  may  be 
sure  that  it  was  invented  by  someone  that  was,  in 
no  wise,  a  hero  himself. 

"  This  virtue,  which  Schopenhauer  taught  as  be- 
ing the  highest  and  only  virtue,  the  foundation  of 
them  all ;  this  pity  I  have  recognized  as  more  dan- 
gerous than  any  vice.  To  fetter,  out  of  principle, 
the  choice  in  the  species,  the  purification  of  this  one 
among  all  the  wastes  —  that  until  today  was  called 
virtue  preeminently."  Compassion,  as  soon  as  it 
truly  creates  some  suffering  —  and  this  should  be 
here  our  only  point  of  view  —  is  a  weakness  as  much 
as  the  giving  way  to  a  prejudicial  virtue.  It  in- 
creases the  amount  of  suffering  in  the  world.  If, 
here  and  there,  as  a  sequel  to  compassion,  a  suffer- 
ing is  indirectly  lessened  or  suppressed,  we  must  not 
use  these  occasional  consequences,  quite  insignificant 
in  the  whole,  to  justify  the  work  of  a  pity  that  is 
baneful.  "  To  allow  this  procedure  to  predominate 
for  even  one  single  day  is  to  let  it  immediately 
lead  humanity  to  its  downfall.  Compassion  has  in 
itself  no  more  of  a  beneficial  character  than  any 
other  instinct.  Only  when  it  is  exacted  and  vaunted 
—  and  this  happens  when  one  fails  to  realize  what 
it  has  that  leads  to  prejudice,  and  when  one  dis- 
covers instead  a  source  of  joy  therein  —  does  com- 
passion cloak  itself,  as  it  were,  with  a  good  con- 
science :  it  is  only  in  that  case  that  one  will  give  one's 
self  up  willingly  to  it,  fearless  of  its  consequences. 


136  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

.  .  .  If  we  allow  our  minds  to  be  darkened  by  the 
misery  and  sufferings  of  others,  and  we  hide  our 
own  sky  with  clouds,  who  shall  bear  the  conse- 
quences of  this  darkening?  The  other  mortals,  of 
course,  and  that  will  be  a  weight  added  to  their 
own  burden.  We  can  neither  help  nor  comfort 
them  if  we  wish  to  be  the  echoes  of  their  misery 
and  if  we  want  ever  to  lend  an  ear  to  that  misery  — 
unless  we  were  to  learn  the  art  of  the  Olympians  and 
sought  to  recover  our  serenity  through  the  misfor- 
tune of  man  instead  of  drawing  wretchedness  there- 
from. But  this  is  somewhat  too  Olympian  for 
us.  .  .  ."^ 

We  hear  much  nowadays  of  solidarity.  It  is  an 
especially  modern  virtue  which  is  made  much  of  in 
official  as  well  as  in  popular  speeches.  The  agree- 
ment seems  to  be  complete  on  solidarity.  It  is,  at 
bottom,  nothing  but  the  need  to  lean  upon  each  other 
so  much  is  every  one  convinced  of  his  own  weak- 
ness, infirmity  and  faint-heartedness.  It  is  some- 
thing like  the  egotism  of  fear,  a  sort  of  cowardly 

1  La  Rochefoucauld :  "  I  am  little  sensitive  to  pity  and 
I  would  like  not  to  feel  it  at  all.  Nevertheless  there  is 
nothing  I  would  not  do  to  relieve  any  one  who  is  afflicted 
and  I  effective-believe  that  one  should  do  everything  even 
to  the  point  of  making  a  show  of  much  compassion  for 
his  trouble;  for  the  wretches  are  so  stupid  that  it  gives 
them  the  greatest  comfort  in  the  world;  yet  I  hold  also 
that  one  should  be  satisfied  with  making  a  show  thereof 
while  taking  good  care  not  to  feel  any.  It  is  a  passion 
that  is  worthless  in  a  well-constructed  soul,  that  can 
but  weaken  the  heart  and  that  should  be  left  to  the  mob, 
who  since  they  never  do  anything  through  their  reason, 
need  passions  to  prompt  them  to  do  things." 


THE    THEORY  I 37 

selfishness.  Sheep  that  press  close  to  each  other  are 
practicing  sohdarity  in  the  most  precise  and  correct 
fashion.  There  is  nothing,  however,  to  indicate  that 
they  are  ver}'  proud  of  it  nor  that  they  make  it  a 
matter  of  pubHc  speeches.  Sohdarity  is  like  trad- 
ing by  association,  a  deal  in  which  each  party  hopes 
to  gain  more  than  the  other,  and  in  which  each  hides 
under  the  affectation  to  render  services  a  burning 
desire  to  receive  one.  It  is,  after  all,  possible  that 
there  is  in  that  a  touch  of  altruism.  But  what  is 
most  distinctly  seen  is  a  sneaking  and  hypocritical 
selfishness  that  dissimulates  itself,  disguises  itself, 
contrives,  insinuates,  has  neither  the  courage  of  its 
opinion  nor  perhaps  the  consciousness  of  it.  How 
ugly  is  selfishness  when  it  besmears  itself  and  yet 
how  truly  beautiful  it  would  be  if  it  were  to  wash  off 
all  the  virtues  with  which  it  paints  itself! 

Shall  we  speak  of  piety?  It  is  no  longer  a  very 
fashionable  virtue  but  in  the  olden  days  it  was  the 
queen  of  them  all,  and  it  still  stands  as  it  were  on 
the  steps  of  its  ancient  throne.  Piety  is  a  particu- 
lar selfishness  with  pride  in  its  background.  It  con- 
sists in  believing  most  deeply  that  there  is  a  superior 
power  which  is  immense,  sublime  and  infinite,  with 
which  we  hold  intimate  relations,  which  we  address 
when  we  wish,  which  listens  to  us  whenever  we 
speak  to  it  and  which  —  wc  truly  believe  that,  and 
dare  to  let  it  know  that  we  do  —  can  refuse  us  noth- 
ing so  much  do  we  love  it.  Xot  in  vain  have  men  in 
many  of  their  languages  attributed  the  same  de- 
nomination to  "  love  "  and  to  love  of  God.  They  do 
not  differ  very  much.     Just  as  love  is  a  desire  and 


138  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

an  appetite  for  possession,  so  love  of  God  is  a  deep, 
more  or  less  conscious,  desire  to  possess  God,  to 
own  Him  as  one's  dependent  and  at  one's  disposal, 
and  to  obtain  from  Him  all  imaginable  favors  in 
time  and  in  eternity.  And  the  bearing  of  each  of 
these  two  loves  is  very  nearly  the  same.  It  is  with 
declarations  of  love,  made  as  eloquent  as  he  can,  that 
the  pious  man  will  attempt  to  conquer  his  God,  and 
the  basis  of  his  reasoning,  as  ludicrous  as  that  of  the 
lover,  is  as  follows :  "  It  is  really  necessary  that 
you  should  love  me.  I  deserve  it  since  I  love  you." 
Desire  constituting  a  right  —  that  is  the  sophism  of 
the  lovers,  the  pious  men,  the  socialist  collectivists, 
of  those  that  solicit  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor.  The  pious  man  prays  in  order  to  obtain 
just  like  the  lover.  These  prayers  must  have  been 
at  first, —  and  we  have  seen  examples  showing  this 
to  be  the  case  —  very  much  alike. 

What  a  strange  aberration  of  pride  and  desire  is 
prayer.  If  prayer  were  to  have  any  meaning  it 
would  mean  firstly  "  that  it  could  be  possible  to  de- 
termine or  to  change  the  feeling  of  the  divinity  " : 
secondly  "  that  the  man  that  prays  should  know  pre- 
cisely what  he  lacks  and  what  he  needs."  Christian- 
ity is  a  curious  thing.  These  two  conditions  neces- 
sary to  prayer  have  been  denied  by  Christianity, 
which  has  invented  that  omniscient  and  omni-provi- 
dent  God,  that  motionless  God,  and  affirmed  that  God 
alone  knows  what  we  need  while  we  do  not.  And 
yet  Christianity  has  preserved  prayer.  It  has  pre- 
served prayer  "  in  parallel  to  faith  in  an  omniscient 
and  omni-provident  reason  of  God.     Prayer  loses 


THE   THEORY  I39 

thereby  its  import  and  becomes  even  blasphema- 
tory."  It  showed  great  craft  in  this.  "  It  showed 
the  admirable  snake-hke  cunning  of  which  it  dis- 
posed. Because  a  clear  commandment :  '  Thou 
shalt  not  pray  I '  zvould  have  led  Christians  to  God- 
lessness.  In  the  Christian  axiom  '  ora  et  labora,' 
the  ura  takes  the  place  of  pleasure.  And  what  would 
have  become,  without  the  ora,  of  all  these  unfortu- 
nates who  were  denying  themselves  the  labora,  the 
saints?  But  to  hold  conversation  with  the  Lord, 
to  ask  from  him  a  thousand  pleasant  things,  to 
take  some  slight  pleasure  in  perceiving  that  one 
could  still  have  desires  in  spite  of  a  father  so  perfect 
—  that  was  an  excellent  invention  for  the  saints." 
And  if  this  seems  to  be  rather  refined,  let  us  say 
that  there  lingers  always  in  Christianity,  as  Comte 
showed  it  very  well,  a  residue  of  paganism,  and  that 
prayer,  which  is  so  much  in  the  way  of  the  Chris- 
tian philosopher  and  of  the  Christian  who  is  a  phil- 
osopher (see  Malebranche)  is  one  of  the  very  many 
remnants  that  paganism  has  left  to  its  successor, 
perhaps  with  an  unspoken  intention  to  poison  it. 
What  is  certain  is  that  the  Christian  prays  his  God 
sometimes  as  a  Christian  but  often,  more  often, 
most  of  the  time,  as  a  lover  begs  from  the  woman 
he  loves. 

W'e  might  carry  the  analogy  further.  It  should 
be  carried  further.  Just  as  there  is  no  love  with- 
out jealousy  so  does  the  man  who  believes,  the  pious 
and  fervent  man,  refuses  to  admit,  or  admit  with 
great  reluctance,  that  any  other  man  could  share  in 
the  favors  of  his  God.     Hence  the  religious  wars, 


140  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

as  atrocious  wars  as  the  quarrels  that  love  has 
brought  about,  and  still  brings  about  among  men. 
The  believer  is  a  jealous  lover  whom  love  and 
jealousy  have  made  ferocious.  In  his  heart  he 
would  like  to  have  a  God  to  himself.  Primitive 
religion  was  fetichism  and  there  will  always  remain 
some  of  it.  Religion  becoming  little  by  little  a 
sociological  and  truly  social  force  changed  from  an 
individual  into  a  communal  thing;  but  it  retained 
always  its  primitive  character  of  a  jealous  and 
suspicious  love.  If  it  is  no  longer  between  man 
and  man  that  suspicion  arises,  if  it  is  no  longer  this 
man  accusing  that  man  of  wanting  to  steal  his  fetich 
from  him,  it  is  now  from  sect  to  sect  that  they  mis- 
trust each  other.  The  white  sect  charges  the  black 
sect  with  wanting  to  attract  to  itself  the  God  of  the 
white  sect,  with  wishing  to  lead  him  astray  and 
to  bribe  him.  And  for  that  reason  the  white  sect 
attacks,  slays  and  furiously  massacres  the  black 
sect.  The  Jews,  from  whom  we  have  religiously 
speaking  inherited  so  many  things,  afford  the  most 
remarkable  example  of  this  religious  jealousy  and 
of  this  love  of  God,  which  is  an  acute  form  of 
monopoly.  Holy  piousness  is  another  transforma- 
tion not  the  least  remarkable  nor  the  least  hateful 
one  of  selfishness. 

Will  any  one  say  that  there  must  be  some  vir- 
tues that  cannot  be  ascribed  to  selfishness?  Let 
us  again  turn  to  La  Rochefoucauld,  and,  to  cut 
short,  let  us  take  a  last  example,  the  very  one,  doubt- 
lessly, that  some  might  triumphantly  oppose  to  us. 
"  Would  you  say,  you  will  exclaim,  that  disinter- 


THE    THEORY  I4I 

estedness  is  selfishness,  that  disinterestedness  is  in- 
terestcdness  ? "  To  be  sure  one  may  say  it,  and 
with  reason.  The  disinterested  man  that  pursues 
an  aim  witliout  foreseeing  the  possibihty  of  any 
personal  advantage,  that  does  it  for  its  own  beauty, 
for  what  he  dimly  perceives  therein  that  is  great, 
higli  and  sublime,  that  man  derives  such  enjoyment 
from  his  renouncement  that  we  should  perhaps  say 
that  he  is  the  most  selfish  of  men.  The  eternal 
error  is  the  belief  that  one  may  get  rid  of  one's 
own  self  or  detach  one's  self  from  it.  One  may 
never  detach  one's  self  from  it.  The  only  result 
of  an  attempt  at  doing  so  is  to  fall  deeper  in  it  and 
to  get  more  buried  under  it.  If  you  like,  one  sinks 
deeper  as  it  were  in  a  deeper  self;  one  becomes  de- 
tached from  the  superficial  side  of  the  self,  to  get 
nearer  the  roots  of  the  self,  and  to  become  inti- 
mately and  inextricably  and  indissolubly  intertwined 
with  it.  The  disinterested  man,  you  say!  But  he 
enjoys  his  disinterestedness  in  the  most  intense 
fashion.  He  takes  an  infinite  interest  in  his  dis- 
interestedness. He  has  not  sacrificed  himself,  he 
has  better  invested  it,  and  by  investing  it  better  he 
has  increased  it  as  one  would  one's  capital.  He 
has  prodigiously  increased  it.  Be  he  priest  or  sa- 
vant, let  us  say  Vincent  de  Paul  or  Pasteur,  do  you 
imagine  that  these  men  are  not  happy?  But  they 
have  not  given  up  their  share  of  happiness;  they 
have  made  no  sacrifice,  no  renouncement.  You 
cannot  call  them  disinterested.  You  may  call  them 
sublime  egotists  if  it  pleases  you  but  call  them  ego- 
tists you  must.     They  arc  deeply,  royally  and  di- 


142  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

vinely  so.  Because  they  are  that,  differently  from 
and  better  than  the  others,  would  you  say  that  they 
are  not  selfish?  They  are  more  so!  More,  no, 
they  are  better!  But,  better  and  more,  it  is  the 
same  thing  if  they  are  conscious  of  it.  And  how 
could  it  be  that  they  should  not  be  conscious  of  it, 
that  they  should  not  feel  their  own  happiness? 

Again,  I  do  not  blame  them.  I  am  in  favor  of 
selfishness.  I  merely  blame  the  disguise.  I  only 
blame  selfishness  when  it  hides  itself  and  gives  itself 
favorable  names,  because  that  spoils  it.  I  merely 
blame  here  the  pretension  of  interest  to  give  itself 
as  disinterested  and  the  error  with  which  one  mis- 
takes the  strongest  egotism  for  disinterestedness. 

Let  us  make  our  confession.  You  are  a  Christian 
and  I  am  a  man  of  science.  We  both  flatter  our- 
selves to  be  disinterested,  to  have  renounced.  Let 
us  truthfully  examine  your  case  and  mine.  "  No 
book  is  there  which  contains  with  more  abundance, 
which  expresses  with  more  candor,  what  can  benefit 
all  men,  the  happy  and  exalted  fervor  that  is  ready 
for  sacrifice  and  death  —  than  the  book  which 
speaks  of  Christ.  A  wise  man  may  learn  therein 
all  the  ways  with  which  one  may  make  of  a  book 
a  universal  book,  everybody's  friend,  and  above  all, 
the  master-means  to  present  all  things  as  discov- 
ered and  to  fail  to  admit  that  anything  may  still 
be  imperfect  or  in  process  of  formation.  .  .  .  The 
reason  which  causes  such  books  to  be  replete  with 
results  —  must  it  not  by  the  same  token  cause  any 
purely  scientific  book  to  be  of  little  weight?  Is 
not  the  latter  condemned  obscurely  to  live  among 


THE  THEORY  I43 

obscure  men  and  to  be  at  length  crucified,  never 
to  be  resuscitated?  Compared  to  what  reHgious 
men  proclaim  concerning  their  knowledge  of  their 
sacred  spirit,  are  not  all  honest  men  of  science  poor 
in  the  spirit?  Can  any  religion,  no  matter  which 
one  we  take,  exact  more  renouncement,  more  piti- 
lessly exclude  the  selfish  than  does  science?  This 
is  very  near  to  what  we  could  say,  we,  the  men  of 
science,  and  not  without  some  historical  backing, 
when  we  have  to  defend  ourselves  against  the  be- 
lievers because  it  is  hardly  possible  to  defend  any- 
thing without  a  certain  amount  of  cabotinagc.  But 
when  we  are  among  ourselves  our  language  must 
be  more  honest.  Down  then  with  renouncement! 
Away  with  these  airs  of  humility.  Better  on  the 
contrary  to  say  that  here  lay  our  truth.  If  science 
were  not  linked  with  the  joy  of  knowledge,  wedded 
to  the  usefulness  of  knowledge,  what  would  science 
mean  to  us?  If  a  little  faith,  a  little  hope  and  love 
did  not  lead  our  soul  to  knowledge,  what  then  could 
attract  us  to  science?  And,  although  in  science  the 
self  means  nothing,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the 
inventive  and  happy  self,  and  even  any  fruitful  and 
earnest  self,  matters  a  great  deal  in  the  republic  of 
the  men  of  science.  The  esteem  of  those  that  con- 
fer esteem,  the  joy  of  those  to  whom  we  wish  well, 
or  of  those  whom  we  respect,  and,  in  certain  cases, 
glor)',  and  the  relative  immortality  of  the  person  — 
such  is  the  price  that  one  may  expect  for  the  giving 
up  of  one's  personality.  This  docs  not  include 
lesser  results  and  compensations,  although  it  is  pre- 
cisely because  of  these  that  most  men  do   swear 


144  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

faithfulness  to  the  laws  of  that  republic  and  in  gen- 
eral to  science,  and  that  they  continue  ever  to  remain 
attached  to  it.  Had  we  not  remained,  in  a  certain 
measure,  non-scientific  men,  what  importance  could 
we  still  attach  to  science  ?  After  all,  and  to  give  my 
axiom  all  its  generality,  knowledge  would  be  indif- 
ferent to  a  purely  knoiving  being.  It  is  not  the 
quality  of  our  faith  and  piousness  that  distin- 
guishes us  from  pious  men.  It  is  the  quantity, —  we 
are  satisfied  with  little.  But  the  others  will  say,  if 
such  is  the  case :  *  be  satisfied  then  and  admit  also 
that  you  are  satisfied.'  To  which  we  could  easily 
retort :  *  it  is  quite  true  that  we  do  not  belong  to  the 
dissatisfied  ones.  But  you,  if  your  faith  makes  you 
happy,  do  you  also  admit  that  you  are  happy '  ,  .  ." 
Therefore  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  there  is 
so  much  selfishness  in  the  virtue  which  seems  to 
consist  in  the  very  exclusion  of  selfishness,  in  that 
virtue  the  very  name  of  which  is  precisely  abo- 
lition of  all  selfishness,  that  one  inquires  if  this 
virtue  is  not  selfishness  itself.  After  that  suf- 
ficiently striking  example,  and  the  legitimate  con- 
clusions drawn  therefrom  it  seems  that  we  need  go 
no  further  and  that  we  must  admit  that  the  virtues 
are,  to  use  the  common  language  of  mankind,  subtle 
forms  of  selfishness,  hypocrisies  of  selfishness  and 
degradations  of  selfishness.  They  are  not  good  be- 
cause, masking  selfishness,  they  hamper  it,  and  dis- 
guising selfishness  they  hinder  it,  and  forcing  it  to 
a  strained  bearing  they  fetter  it,  and,  because  mixing 
it  with  some  foreign  matter,  they  alter  and  corrupt 
it.     It  is  selfishness  in  the  pure  state  that  is  beautiful 


THE   THEORY  I45 

and  good.  Men  are  not  mistaken  because  they  are 
selfish  and  because  they  want  to  remain  so.  They 
are  mistaken  because  they  want  to  dissimulate  their 
selfishness,  to  hide  it  from  themselves  and  the  others. 
Note  that  man  thinks  he  needs  this  mask  of 
virtue,  this  morality  mask,  all  the  more  and  in  sooth 
that  he  needs  it  really  all  the  more  as  he  becomes 
more  civilized.  In  other  words  he  needs  it  all  the 
more  according  to  the  length  of  time  he  has  borne 
it.  The  civilized  man,  man  moralized,  has  become 
very  ugly,  most  insipid,  most  puny  and  hideous. 
The  mask  has  made  the  face  ugly.  All  the  more 
reason,  therefore,  why  he  should  mask  himself  and 
so  on  indefinitely.  Suppose  a  man  who,  in  order  to 
make  himself  agreeable,  has  begun  to  wear  a  mask, 
and  his  mask  has  given  him  a  cancer.  From  being 
an  alleged  ornament,  the  mask  becomes  a  horrible 
necessity.  That  is  where  we  stand  in  the  Europe 
of  1880;  and  this  is  no  doubt  a  difficulty  which  the 
immoralists  fully  appreciate  and  which  would  al- 
most cause  them  to  hesitate  on  the  road.  "  The 
spectacle  of  man's  nakedness  is  generally  shameful. 
I  am  speaking  of  us  Europeans.  .  .  .  Let  us  im- 
agine some  extremely  merry  guests  at  a  banquet, 
and  that,  by  some  sly  trick  of  a  magician,  they  find 
themselves  suddenly  unveiled  and  undressed.  I  am 
thinking  that,  at  that  very  minute,  not  only  would 
their  pleasant  mood  suddenly  disappear,  but  even 
that  the  most  ravenous  appetite  would  be  discour- 
aged. It  seems  that  we  Europeans  cannot  ])ossibly 
do  without  that  masquerade  which  we  call  clothing. 
The  same  good  reasons  then  might  perhaps  exist  for 


146  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

the  advocating  of  a  disguise  for  moral  men,  leading 
us  to  ask  that  they  be  wrapped  up  in  moral  for- 
mulas and  notions  of  propriety,  and  to  ask  also  that 
our  actions  be  benevolently  hidden  under  the  ideas 
of  duty,  virtue,  civic  spirit,  honorability  and  dis- 
interestedness. Not  that  I  think  that  we  should 
mask  human  wickedness,  that  dangerous  wild  beast 
that  lurks  within  us.  On  the  contrary.  It  is  pre- 
cisely as  domestic  animals  that  we  afford  a  shameful 
spectacle  and  that  we  need  a  moral  disguise.  The 
inner  man  in  Europe  is  not  sufficiently  disquieting 
to  be  able  to  show  himself  with  a  ferociousness  that 
could  make  him  beautiful.  The  European  cloaks 
himself  with  morality  because  he  has  become  a 
sickly,  infirm,  and  crippled  animal,  with  the  best  of 
reasons  for  being  tamed  since  he  is  almost  an  abor- 
tion, something  imperfect,  misshapen  and  awkward. 
It  is  not  the  ferociousness  of  the  beast  of  prey 
which  feels  the  need  of  a  moral  disguise;  it  is  the 
animal  from  the  herd  with  its  thorough  mediocrity, 
and  the  fear  and  boredom  it  gives  itself.  Morality 
decks  out  the  European,  let  us  acknowledge  it,  so 
as  to  give  him  distinction,  importance  in  appearance, 
and  to  make  him  divine." 

Because  it  is  becoming  difficult  to  return  to  pure 
selfishness  and  to  rediscover  selfishness  in  its  pure 
state,  where  it  is  beautiful,  sane  and  fruitful,  that 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  try  it  again.  Es- 
pecially is  that  no  reason  why  it  were  untrue  to  say 
that  selfishness  is  the  natural  and  the  best  state  of 
man.  It  is  so,  and  we  should  have  the  intelligence 
to  understand  it  and  the  courage  to  say  it.    The 


THE   THEORY  I47 

depths  of  the  sane  man  reveal  an  ardent,  energetic 
and  boundless  egotism,  and  *'  will  to  power,"  the 
desire  for  extension,  the  desire  and  the  need  to  be 
ever  greater,  more  expanded,  influential,  ever  to 
extend  further  his  action,  ever  to  occupy  more 
space. 

There  is  some  delusion  in  the  assurance  that  the 
basis  of  mankind  is  the  desire  for  happiness  — 
that  is,  if  there  may  be  any  delusion  when  one  uses 
so  elastic,  plastic  and  vague  a  word  as  happiness. 
If  by  happiness,  one  understands  a  state  of  rest, 
quietness  and  tranquillity  in  which  one  wishes  and 
can  wish  nothing,  that  is  surely  not  man's  desire 
and,  when  he  does  desire  it,  he  is  mistaken  about 
himself.  Assuredly  he  does,  though,  and  Pascal 
said  it  very  well :  "  He  tends  towards  rest  through 
agitation."  But  we  need  to  realize  that  Pascal 
meant :  "  he  tends  towards  rest  through  agitation, 
and  that  indefinitely."  Therefore,  in  last  anal- 
ysis, it  is  agitation  that  he  needs.  He  agitates 
himself  to  increase  himself,  believing  perhaps  that, 
having  reached  a  certain  stage  of  increase,  he  will 
be  able  to  rest  in  his  acquired  greatness  and  upon 
his  conquest.  But  that  is  a  mere  illusion,  and  we 
must  leave  it  aside.  Man  agitates  himself  to  in- 
crease himself,  and  his  only  true  need  is  agitation 
for  the  sake  of  power. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  knows  it  subconsciously 
very  well.  When  he  says  that  he  will  rest  when  he 
has  reached  such  and  such  an  aim,  and  that  he  will 
enjoy  a  "  well-earned  rest,"  he  only  half-believes  it, 
and  is  somewhat  laughing  at  himself.     Within  him- 


148  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

self,  behind  the  man  who  says  that,  there  is  one 
that  laughs  in  his  sleeve.  This  is  precisely  the  rea- 
son why  most  men  of  action  set  up  a  goal  for  them- 
selves, true  enough,  and  it  is  understood  that  on 
reaching  it  they  will  rest  themselves,  but  they  take 
good  care  to  set  it  up  so  far  that  never  can  they 
reach  it.  They  fear  above  all  things  the  morrow  of 
the  task  accomplished,  that  gloomy  sadness  with 
which  Gibbon  was  seized  when  he  had  written  the 
last  line  of  his  huge  Roman  History.  Gibbon  had 
always  feared  not  to  finish  his  Roman  History;  but 
in  his  heart  there  was  ever  the  secret  hope  that  he 
might  die  before  ending  it. 

The  will  to  power,  the  wish  to  persevere  in  the 
being  and,  indefinitely,  to  expand  one's  being,  pure 
egotism  in  short, —  there  you  have  natural  man. 
When  he  thinks  he  renounces  it,  he  does  not  re- 
nounce it ;  when  he  alters  it  to  a  smaller  or  a  larger 
extent,  he  denatures  himself ;  when  one  denatures 
one's  self,  one  degrades  and  weakens  one's  self; 
and  moralized  man  is  but  a  perverted  egotist.  In 
order  to  reintegrate  man  into  his  humanity,  we  must, 
at  all  cost,  persuade  him  to  become  once  more  a  pure 
and  simple  egotist.  Radical  egotists  they  were, 
those  nations  of  the  antiquity  that  did  not  even  ad- 
mit, that  did  not  even  understand  that  there  could 
be  any  other  destiny  for  a  people  but  to  be  con- 
queror or  conquered,  which  were  ever  going  forth, 
ceaselessly  conquering,  piling  up  increases  upon  in- 
creases, extending  and  developing  their  personality, 
wishing  to  fill  the  world  with  their  self,  until  the 
day,  by  them  accepted,  when  in  turn  they  would  be 


THE    THEORY  I49 

conquered.  And  yet  these  nations  were  those 
that  created  civiHzation.  One  cannot  say  that  they 
had  a  bandits'  morahty  or  that  their  conception  of 
Ufe  was  worthy  of  barbarians  or  savages.  They 
were  men  and  that  is  all.  They  were  fully  men. 
They  had  the  "  will  of  power,"  that  is  to  say,  a  sane, 
young  and  lively  egotism,  and  they  expanded,  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  nature,  by  conquest,  by  the 
founding  of  cities,  by  colonial  settlements,  by  liter- 
ary and  artistic  creation.  With  morality,  they  both- 
ered themselves  no  more  than  if  it  had  not  existed, 
unless  it  were  with  that  morality  zvhich  is  but  a 
rule  of  civil  and  civic  discipline. 

Let  any  one  tell  me  what  was  the  morality  of  a 
Themistocles,  a  Pericles,  a  Scipio,  a  Sylla,  a  Marius 
or  a  Caesar  unless  it  were  this :  "  I  myself,  great 
in  the  ever  greater  motherland  ?  "  Warriors'  mo- 
rality, brigands'  morality.  It  may  be  clever  to  say 
this.  At  all  events  it  is  very  "  ecclesiastical  "  and 
very  bureaucratic,  and  there  is  no  clergyman  or 
established  petty  official  who  has  not  said  it  a  dozen 
times  in  his  life.  Note  here  that  they  quickly 
change  their  morality  as  soon  as  their  own  country 
wins  a  small  victory.  But  I  say  to  you ;  "  my 
brethren  in  war!  I  love  you  from  the  very  heart. 
I  am,  and  was  ever,  your  counterpart.  And  I  am 
also  your  best  enemy.  So  let  me  tell  you  the  truth. 
I  know  the  hatred  and  envy  of  your  hearts.  Ye 
are  not  great  enough  not  to  know  of  hatred  and 
envy.  Then  be  great  enough  not  to  be  ashamed  of 
them.  And  if  ye  cannot  be  saints  of  knowledge, 
then,  I  pray  you,  be  at  least  its  warriors.     They 


150  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

are  the  companions  and  forerunners  of  such  saint- 
ship.  I  see  many  soldiers ;  could  I  but  see  many 
warriors !  '  Uniform  '  one  calleth  what  they  wear; 
may  it  not  be  uniform  that  they  therewith  hide! 
Ye  shall  be  those  whose  eyes  ever  seek  for  an  enemy 
—  for  your  enemy.  And  with  some  of  you  there 
is  hatred  at  first  sight.  Your  enemy  shall  ye  seek ; 
your  war  shall  ye  wage,  and  for  the  sake  of  your 
thoughts.  And  if  your  thoughts  succumb,  your 
uprightness  shall  still  shout  triumph  thereby.  Ye 
shall  love  peace  as  a  means  to  new  wars  —  and  the 
short  peace  more  than  the  long.  You  I  advise  not 
to  work,  but  to  fight.  You  I  advise  not  to  peace, 
but  to  victory.  Let  your  work  be  a  fight,  let  your 
peace  be  a  victory.  One  can  only  be  silent  and 
sit  peacefully  when  one  hath  arrow  and  bow ;  other- 
wise one  prateth  and  quarreleth.  Let  your  peace 
be  a  victory!  Ye  say  it  is  the  good  cause  that 
halloweth  even  war  ?  I  say  unto  you :  it  is  the  good 
war  that  halloweth  every  cause.  War  and  cour- 
age have  done  more  great  things  than  charity.  Not 
your  sympathy,  but  your  bravery  hath  hitherto  saved 
the  victims.  *  What  is  good  ? '  ye  ask.  To  be  brave 
is  good.  Let  the  little  girls  say :  *  To  be  good  is 
pretty,  and  at  the  same  time  touching.'  They 
call  you  heartless :  but  your  heart  is  true,  and 
I  love  the  bashfulness  of  your  goodwill.  Ye  are 
ashamed  of  your  flow,  and  others  are  ashamed  of 
their  ebb.  Ye  are  ugly?  Well  then,  my  brethren, 
take  the  sublime  about  you,  the  mantle  of  the  ugly. 
And  when  your  soul  becometh  great,  then  doth  it 
become  haughty,   and  in  your  sublimity  there  is 


THE   THEORY  I5I 

wickedness.  I  know  you.  In  wickedness  the 
haughty  man  and  the  weakHng  meet.  But  they 
misunderstand  one  another.  I  know  you.  Ye  shall 
only  have  enemies  to  be  hated,  but  not  enemies  to 
be  despised.  Ye  must  be  proud  of  your  enemies ; 
then,  the  successes  of  your  enemies  are  also  your 
successes.  Resistance  —  that  is  the  distinction  of 
the  slave.  Let  your  distinction  be  obedience.  Let 
your  commanding  itself  be  obeying.  To  the  good 
warrior  soundeth  *  thou  shalt '  pleasanter  than  '  I 
will.*  And  all  that  is  dear  unto  you,  ye  shall  first 
have  it  commanded  unto  you.  Let  your  love  to  life 
be  love  to  your  highest  hope;  and  let  your  highest 
hope  be  the  highest  thought  of  life.  Your  highest 
thought,  however,  ye  shall  have  commanded  unto 
you  by  me  —  and  it  is  this :  man  is  something  that  is 
to  be  surpassed.  So  live  your  life  of  obedience  and 
of  war.  What  matter  about  long  life?  What  war- 
rior wisheth  to  be  spared  ?  I  spare  you  not,  I  love 
you  from  my  very  heart,  my  brethren  in  war. — 
Thus  spake  Zarathustra." 

However  the  devastating  egotism  has  always  been 
termed  ez'il  for  two  sufficiently  reasonable  reasons. 
The  first  one  is  that  this  devastating  egotism,  what- 
ever it  is  with  which  you  blend  it,  is  after  all  wick- 
edness. The  second  is  that  it  begins  at  least  with 
an  accumulation  of  disasters  and  by  causing  awful 
sufferings  to  mankind.  If  that  be  not  evil,  what  is 
evil?  Well,  if  that  be  evil,  I  might  feel  some- 
what tempted  to  exclaim :  "  Long  live  Evil !  "  as 
Proudhon  once  exclaimed  :  "  Long  live  Satan !  " 
for  this  evil  is  singularly  beneficent  and,  after  all, 


152  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

I  can  see  nothing  but  that  as  being  beneficent.  If 
you  have  not  yet  observed  that  a  pacifist  civilization 
lulls  nations  to  sleep  and  gradually  becomes  some 
culture  fluid  for  all  the  vices,  especially  for  the  most 
shameful  among  them!  ...  It  seems  to  me  that 
nearly  all  the  good  that  was  accomplished  in  the 
world  has  been  the  work  of  "  evil."  Good  men  have 
Iheir  good  points  but  they  have  a  few  less  than  the 
bad  men.  The  good  is  good,  to  be  sure  but  evil 
is  better :  "  The  strongest  and  most  wicked  minds 
are  the  very  ones  that  have  to  this  day  led  human- 
ity to  its  greatest  progress.  They  always  were  re- 
kindling anew  the  passions  that  were  falling 
asleep, —  for  every  organized  society  puts  the  pas- 
sions to  sleep.  They  reawakened  relentlessly  the 
sense  of  comparison  and  of  contradiction,  and  the 
pleasure  that  lay  in  the  new,  the  dared,  the  non-felt. 
They  compel  man  to  set  up  opinions  against  opin- 
ions, to  oppose  an  ideal  type  to  an  ideal  type.  Most 
of  the  time  they  achieve  that  by  force  of  arms, 
by  breaking  down  the  frontiers  and  by  violating 
piety ;  but  they  did  it  also  through  new  religions  and 
new  moralities.  The  same  wickedness  is  in  the  soul 
of  all  the  masters  and  of  all  the  preachers  of  the 
new,  that  same  wickedness  that  discredits  a  con- 
queror. Nevertheless,  what  is  new  is,  no  matter 
how  you  look  at  it,  evil,  for  it  is  that  which  con- 
quers and  aims  at  pulling  down  the  old  landmarks 
and  the  ancient  pieties.  Only  the  ancient  can  be 
good.  The  good  men  of  all  periods  were  those  that 
searched  deeply  into  the  old  ideas  to  make  them 
bear  fruit ;  they  were  tillers  of  the  mind.     But  there 


THE   THEORY  153 

is  no  soil  that  does  not  become  exhausted  and 
there  must  always  come  back  to  it  the  point  of  the 
plough  of  evil.  There  exists  nowadays  an  abso- 
lutely erroneous  doctrine  of  morality,  a  doctrine 
that  is  especially  welcome  in  England.  Accord- 
ing to  its  tenets  the  judgments  good  and  evil  are 
the  accumulation  of  past  experiences  concerning 
what  is  opportune  and  inopportune;  and,  according 
to  them,  what  is  called  good  is  what  preserves  the 
species,  and  what  is  called  evil  is  what  threatens  it. 
But,  to  say  the  truth,  the  bad  instincts  are  oppor- 
tune; they  are  the  keepers  of  the  species  and  its 
renovators  to  the  same  extent  as  the  good  ones.  It 
is  only  their  function  that  differs." 

For  all  these  irrefutable  reasons  it  becomes  neces- 
sary to  reinstate  man's  only  true  virtue,  the  will  to 
power,  an  integral  egotism,  a  radical,  uncompromis- 
ing, undisguised,  and  unadulterated  egotism,  an  open 
and  daring  egotism.  We  must  shed  morality  as  we 
would  some  cumbersome  and  choking  garment  or 
exude  it  as  we  would  a  deadly  virus.  This  morality 
never  has  but  one  aim,  one  end,  one  anxiety,  one 
passion  —  that  is  to  kill  the  individual,  with  the  pur- 
pose, erroneous  at  that,  to  cause  society  to  live  on. 

Is^othing  is  more  ferocious  than  this  so-called 
altruistic  morality.  It  is  but  a  piece  of  atrocious 
and  murdering  social  selfishness.  It  never  says: 
"I  am  sacrificing  myself"  but  "do  ye  sacrifice 
yourselves  to  me."  What  is  it  you  name  "  virtues  "  ? 
You  name  a  man's  virtues  good,  beautiful  and  ad- 
mirable "  not  because  of  the  results  they  have  for 
him  personally  but  with  regard  to  the  results  you 


154  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

suppose  them  to  entail  for  yourselves  and  for 
society."  In  sooth,  you  show  very  little  disinterest- 
edness in  your  praise  of  disinterestedness;  you  are 
remarkably  selfish  in  your  praise  of  non-selfishness. 
For  otherwise  you  would  have  noticed  that  the  vir- 
tues, such  as  application,  obedience,  chastity  and 
piety  are  detrimental  as  a  rule  to  him  that  practices 
them.  .  .  .  When  you  possess  a  virtue,  a  true  and 
complete  virtue,  not  merely  the  small  instinct  of  a 
virtue,  you  are  the  victim  of  that  virtue.  That  is 
the  very  reason  that  prompts  your  neighbor  to 
praise  your  virtue.  We  praise  the  worker,  albeit 
his  application  is  detrimental  to  his  visual  faculties, 
to  the  originality  and  the  freshness  of  his  mind. 
We  pity  and  respect  the  young  man  who  "  tired 
himself  out  with  work  "  because  we  judge  as  fol- 
lows :  "  the  loss  of  an  individual,  of  even  the  best 
individual  is  but  a  small  sacrifice  for  society  as  a 
whole.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  this  sacrifice  was 
necessary.  Yet  it  would  surely  be  much  more  to  be 
regretted  if  the  individual  zvere  to  think  otherwise 
and  attached  more  importance  to  his  own  preserva- 
tion and  his  own  development  than  to  his  work,  per- 
formed in  the  service  of  society."  Such  is  your 
reasoning  in  the  face  of  the  virtue  of  others.  It  is 
not  what  one  would  call  virtuous.  Properly  speak- 
ing it  is  a  cynical  reasoning.  Those  that  praise  vir- 
tue should  put  us  out  of  conceit  with  it,  because  of 
the  profoundly  perverse  fashion  in  which  they 
praise  it;  I  should  rather  say,  because  of  the  very 
principle  at  the  basis  of  the  praise  that  they  deal 
out  to  it. 


THE  THEORY  1 55 

It  is  true  that  you  pity  that  young  man  at  the 
same  time  as  you  respect  him  but  it  is  not  "  for  him- 
self that  you  pity  him.  You  do  it  because,  through 
his  death  a  docile  instrument,  or  as  you  term  it  a 
good  man,  has  been  lost  to  disinterested  society. 
It  may  be  that  you  take  into  consideration  the  fact 
that  he  would  have  proved  even  more  useful  to 
society  if  he  had  worked  with  more  care  of  him- 
self, and  had  kept  himself  going  for  a  longer  period. 
One  does  not  deny  the  advantage  that  would  have 
accrued  in  that  case,  but  one  estimates  more  lasting 
and  higher  the  other  advantage  that  a  sacrifice  has 
been  made  and  that  the  notion  of  the  sacrifice  vic- 
tim has  once  more  received  visible  confirmation." 
The  eulogy  of  virtue,  in  other  words,  morality,  is 
therefore  the  exaltation  of  "  a  certain  unreason  in 
virtue,  thanks  to  which  the  individual  allows  him- 
self to  be  transformed  into  a  function  of  the  collec- 
tivity." 

The  eulogy  of  virtue,  othenvise  named  morality 
is  the  exaltation  of  "  something  detrimental  in  the 
individual,  the  praise  of  some  instinct,  learned,  ac- 
quired or  traditional  which  deprives  man  of  the 
noblest  love  of  himself  and  of  the  strength  to  pro- 
tect himself."  At  all  cost  we  must  get  rid  of  that 
kind  of  morality. 

This  sort  of  egotism-himting  by  morality,  pur- 
sued with  monstrous  egotism,  takes  at  times  a  most 
peculiar  character  and  brings  out  results  that  are 
as  ludicrous  as  they  are  detrimental.  The  great 
motto  of  morality,  is  it  not,  "  have  command  of 
one's   self;    learn    to    conquer    one's    self.     Gnotlii 


156    ,  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

seaiiton;  micah  seauton  "f  There  may  be  some  good 
in  that,  but  it  is  rather  Hkely  to  breed  maniacs  and 
wretched  ones  too.  "  These  teachers  of  morahty 
that  recommend  to  man  above  and  before  all  things 
to  possess  himself,  inoculate  him  with  a  peculiar 
disease,  a  sort  of  continuous  itching.  I  mean  the 
constant  irritability  against  all  natural  impulses  and 
inclinations.  Whatever  comes  to  him  from  within 
or  from  without,  be  it  a  thought,  an  attraction  or  a 
desire,  the  irritable  man  always  fancies  that  now 
is  his  mastery  over  himself  running  a  risk.  Un- 
able to  trust  and  abandon  himself  to  any  instinct, 
to  any  free  flap  of  his  wings,  he  is  forever  making 
defensive  gestures.  Armed  against  himself,  his  eye 
sharp  and  defiant,  he  has  constituted  himself  the 
eternal  keeper  of  his  own  tower.  He  may,  with  all 
this,  be  great.  But  how  unbearable  to  others  he 
has  become,  hard  to  put  up  with,  and  how  he  has 
beggared  himself  and  isolated  himself  from  the  fin- 
est hazards  of  the  soul  and  from  all  possible  future 
experiences.  For  one  should  know  hozv  to  love 
one's  self  for  a  time  if  one  wishes  to  learn  some- 
thing of  those  that  are  what  zve  ourselves  are  not." 

Delenda  est  Carthago!  Morality  must  be  abol- 
ished. It  is  a  social  Moloch,  a  destroyer  of  all  the 
sane,  free  and  fecund  energies.  Pure  egotism  must 
be  reinstated. 

One  may  advance  the  idea  that  when  egotism 
does  not  transform  itself  into  alleged  virtues, 
through  the  metempsychosis  or  the  mimicry  that 
we  have  studied,  it  transforms  itself  into  passions; 
rather  that  passions  are  its  natural  forms  and  vari- 


THE  THEORY  1 57 

ous  aspects.  Are  you  going  to  defend  and  support 
the  passions?  They  have  until  now  been  generally 
considered  as  diseases  of  the  soul.  Is  not  that  the 
case? 

Of  course  not.  The  passions  are  no  diseases. 
They  are  manifestations  of  life.  They  are  trans- 
ports, effervescences ;  they  are  fevers  if  you  like  but 
they  are  not  diseases.  There  may  be  a  rule  for  pas- 
sions, as  there  is  one  for  games,  as  plays  have  their 
programs,  travels  their  time  tables,  walk  its  method 
and  racing  or  dancing  their  laws.  These  are  ju- 
dicious and  time-saving  dispositions  that  aim  at 
helping  one  to  derive  the  utinost  possible  enjoy- 
ment out  of  the  various  things  they  regulate.  Let 
then  the  passions  have  their  rules;  that  is  very  ac- 
ceptable and  even  evident.  But  passions  in  them- 
selves are  sane,  as  Descartes  well  knew  long  ago, 
and  if  they  are  manifestations  of  egotism,  it  is  be- 
cause they  are  manifestations  of  life,  for  egotism  is 
life  itself. 

Some  sincere  men  have  spoken  ill  of  human  pas- 
sions. They  had  a  reason  and  some  common  sense 
at  least  in  this  case.  They  did  it  because  the  pas- 
sions to  which  men  are  a  prey  are  very  often  not 
passions  at  all  but  imitations  of  passions,  apeings 
of  passions.  "  How  many  men  there  are,"  ex- 
claimed La  Rochefoucauld,  "  who  would  never  have 
fallen  in  love  had  they  not  heard  people  speak  of 
love."  Nothing  is  more  true  than  this.  We  have 
as  many  false  lovers,  false  jealous,  false  autorita- 
rians,  false  ambitious  men,  false  sectarians,  false 
party  men,  false  men  of  convictions,  as  we  have 


158  ON   READING  NIETZSCHE 

false  poets,  false  writers  and  false  thinkers.  At 
the  beginning  of  his  life,  man  takes  very  often,  ex- 
tremely often,  for  a  passion,  for  his  passion,  a  very 
fugitive  and  very  superficial  inclination  that  comes 
to  him,  prompting  him  to  imitate  this  or  that  person 
about  him,  this  or  that  character  of  modem  or 
ancient  history,  or  of  some  novel  or  poem.  It  is 
certain  that  such  a  passion  is  ludicrous,  leads  but  to 
follies  and  causes  his  unhappiness.  One  must  not 
fool  one's  self  over  one's  passions  any  more  than 
over  one's  aptitudes,  since  after  all  passions  are 
aptitudes. 

But  the  deep,  true  passions  are  all  of  them  excel- 
lent forces  for  both  the  individual  and  society. 
The  ugliest  of  them,  say  that  of  the  miser,  is 
precious  and  fruitful.  Fere  Grandet,^  who  was  a 
great  man,  a  poet,  did,  so  far  as  himself  was  con- 
cerned, taste  deep  joys,  ecstasies,  the  ravishments 
of  a  collector,  a  founder  and  a  conqueror.  And 
so  far  as  society  was  concerned,  he  created  for  it 
one  of  those  reserves  of  accumulated  work  which 
is  very  useful  that  some  men  should  prepare. 
All  the  passions  are  good  when  they  are  true.  To 
flay  or  proscribe  them  shows  a  detestable  pharisaism. 

Teachers  of  morality  have  a  safe  game  when 
they  abuse  the  passions.  They  provide  an  easy 
field  of  exploitation  because,  to  be  sure,  the  pas- 
sions, like  everything  that  is  beautiful,  are  replete 
with  dangers.  But  these  teachers  exaggerate  to 
begin  with  and  impose  upon  us,  and,  moreover,  it  is 
precisely  the  affairs  that  are  pregnant  with  dan- 

1  Balzac's  well  known  character. 


THE   THEORY  1 59 

ger  that  are  worthy  of  man's  attachment.  That  is 
the  sign  by  which  we  know  tliem.  "  What  themes 
have  not  iliese  preachers  of  morality  embroidered 
upon  the  inner  'misery'  of  the  'wicked'  men? 
What  hes  have  they  not  prated  of  the  wretched- 
ness of  passionate  men  ?  Lies,  yes,  that  is  the  right 
word.  They  know  very  well  the  extreme  happi- 
ness of  that  sort  of  men  but  they  say  nothing  of  it 
because  it  would  refute  their  theory,  according 
to  which  no  happiness  can  be  born  but  from  the 
annihilation  of  passion  and  the  silencing  of  desire." 
As  to  the  recipe  of  all  these  soul  physicians  and 
their  recommendation  of  a  radical  and  rigorous 
cure,  one  may  be  allowed  to  inquire:  "  Is  our  life 
really  sorrowful  enough  and  hateful  enough  for 
us  to  exchange  it  with  advantage  for  the  stoicism 
of  some  petrified  life?  We  do  not  feel  ourselves 
sufficiently  sick  to  need  become  sick  in  a  stoic  fash- 
ion. It  seems  to  me  that  people  have  always  been 
speaking  with  exaggeration  concerning  pain  and 
sorrow,  as  if  it  were  good  form  to  exaggerate  in 
this  matter.  On  the  other  hand,  people  maintain 
silence  on  the  innumerable  ways  to  alleviate  sor- 
row. We  are  very  good  at  shedding  tears  upon 
our  grief,  and  especially  upon  the  grief  of  the 
soul ;  there  are  resources  open  to  us  in  our  cour- 
age and  loftiness  and  in  the  noble  delights  of 
submission  and  resignation.  A  trouble  is  merely 
a  trouble  for  an  hour.  One  way  or  another,  it  is 
as  a  present  fallen  therewith  from  the  sky,  such  as 
new  strength  even  if  it  be  but  a  new  occasion  to 
display  strength." 


l6o  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

These  preachers  of  morality,  if  they  are  sincere, 
and  that  is  not  lilcely,  have  failed  sufficiently  to 
mediate  on  the  necessary,  natural  and,  withal,  very 
fortunate  intricacy  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Pain 
and  pleasure  are  linked  and  intermingled  to  such 
an  extent  that  they  are  each  other's  function,  or  are 
at  least,  in  any  and  every  case,  joined  in  an  indis- 
soluble union  to  the  extent  that  they  are  at  times 
indistinguishable,  "  What !  Is  then  the  final  aim 
of  science  to  create  for  man  as  much  pleasure  and 
as  little  pain  as  possible?  How  could  that  be  if 
pleasure  and  grief  were  so  tightly  bound  together 
that  the  man  that  wished  to  take  his  fill  of  the  one, 
who  would  learn  to  jubilate  to  the  heavens,  must 
needs  also  prepare  himself  to  be  sad  unto  death? 
(Himmeloch  jauch^end.  Zum  Tode  hetrueht. — 
The  Song  of  Clara  in  Goethe's  Egmont.)  And  that 
may  be  true.  The  stoics  at  least  believed  it,  and 
they  were  consistent,  when  they  asked  the  least 
pleasure  possible  in  order  that  life  should  cause  them 
the  least  pain  possible.  When  you  utter  the  sen- 
tence :  '  The  virtuous  man  is  the  happiest,'  you 
are  in  the  same  breath,  exhibiting  the  sign  to  the 
masses  and  setting  forth  a  casuistic  subtlety  for 
the  more  subtle  people.  Today  you  can  still  make 
your  choice :  either  you  decide  upon  the  smallest 
amount  possible  of  pleasure,  in  short  the  absence 
of  pain.  After  all,  socialists  of  all  brands  could  not 
honestly  promise  any  more  to  their  supporters. 
Or  else  you  may  decide  in  favor  of  as  much  grief  as 
possible,  as  the  price  you  are  prepared  to  pay  for 
the  expansion   resulting   from   a   mass   of    enjoy- 


THE   THEORY  l6l 

merit  and  of  pleasures,  all  subtle  and  seldom  tasted 
to  this  day.  If  you  decide  in  favor  of  the  first 
alternative,  if  you  wish  to  lessen  and  diminish  the 
sufferings  of  mankind,  well,  you  will  have  to  di- 
minish and  lessen  at  the  same  time  their  capacity 
for  joy.  It  is  certain  that  one  may  favor  either 
of  these  two  with  the  help  of  science  (philosophical 
science,  general  science,  otherwise  named  know- 
ledge). Perhaps  one  knows  science  now  rather 
owing  to  its  faculty  to  deprive  men  of  their  pleasure 
and  to  render  them  colder,  more  insensible  and 
stoical.  But  one  could  also  discover  in  it  facul- 
ties of  a  great  dispenser  of  pain.  And  the^i  its 
opposite  force  might  be  discovered  at  the  same 
time,  its  immense  faculty  to  light  up  a  new  starry 
heaven  for  joy." 

It  is  certain  that  the  passions  are  forces  that 
'can  be  repressed  but  not  without  repressing  and 
even  suppressing  life  itself.  It  is  certain  that  they 
are  the  very  life,  and  that  they  give  to  the  man 
that  abandons  himself  to  them  lively  sorrows  and 
deep  joys,  pleasure  in  suffering,  happiness  along 
with  unhappiness  —  and  therefore  happiness.  For 
that  is  the  point  we  must  reach :  man  is  made  for 
a  life  in  which  enters  an  unhappiness  mingled  with 
joys.  He  is  intended  for  a  checkered  life,  for  a 
dramatic  life  and  for  a  dangerous  life.  A  dan- 
gerous life,  that  is  the  natural  life  of  man.  That 
is  what  preserves  him  from  boredom,  melancholy, 
depression,  stagnation,  disgust  and  the  low  pas- 
sions, or  in  better  words  from  what  is  low  and 
vile  in  each  passion,  from  the  low  forms  of  each 


l62  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

passion.  The  dangerous  is  the  true  life.  For  do 
you  know  what  the  word  "  true  "  means  ?  "  True 
—  that  means :  that  which  upHfts  the  human  type." 
The  dangerous  life  is  the  superior  life.  The  dan- 
gerous life  is  the  good  life.  For  do  you  know 
what  the  good  is?  The  good  is  the  beautiful.  It 
is  not  at  all  a  little  more  pleasure  or  a  little  more 
comfort.  To  cause  the  good  to  depend  upon  such 
things  is  very  mean  and  cowardly;  it  is  almost 
nihilism  or  something  that  leads  to  it.  "  The  pre- 
ponderance of  pain  over  joy,  or  vice  versa,  these 
are  two  doctrines  that  give  signs  of  incipient 
nihilism.  In  both  cases  no  other  final  meaning  is 
set  but  the  phenomena  of  pleasure  or  grief.  But 
that  is  the  way  of  the  kind  of  men  that  lack  the 
courage  to  set  themselves  a  will.  For  any  saner 
kind  of  men,  the  value  of  life  is  not  measured  by 
the  standard  of  such  accessory  things. — '  Life  is 
not  worth  living '  and  on  the  other  hand  '  of  what 
use  are  tears.'  That  is  a  weak  and  sentimental 
argumentation.  .  .  .  The  fundamental  instinct  of  all 
vigorous  natures  is  that  there  exists  something  which 
is  a  hundred  times  more  important  than  to  know 
whether  we  find  ourselves  well  or  not  —  and  con- 
sequently also  to  know  whether  others  find  them- 
selves well  or  not.  This  instinct  tells  them  that 
we  have  an  aim  for  which  one  does  not  hesitate  to 
make  human  sacrifices,  to  run  the  risk  of  all  dan- 
gers or  to  take  the  worst  upon  one's  self.  That 
is  the  great  passion.  For  the  subjective  is  but  a 
fiction.  The  ego  of  which  one  speaks  when  one 
blames  egotism  does  not  exist  at  all." 


THE  THEORY  163 

Opposed  therefore  to  morality,  the  doctrine  of 
life  unfolds  the  passions  to  cause  man  to  live  an 
ardent  and  superior  life.  Superior  to  what?  Su- 
perior always  to  something,  always  to  itself,  and 
more  and  more  to  itself  since  man's  nature,  law 
and  aim  is  to  rise  above  himself.  The  will  to  power 
in  its  end  and,  perhaps,  even  in  its  very  essence 
is  precisely  the  will  to  live  dangerously.  And  the 
dangerous  life,  the  first  life  of  man,  if  we  go  back 
along  the  course  of  time,  is  the  only  vita  vitalis, 
the  only  one  that  is  worth  the  trouble  of  living  and 
that  is  worthy  to  be  lived.  Decadence  is  pre- 
cisely what  so  many  men  call  progress;  it  is  the 
passage  from  life  dangerous  to  the  flat  and  ignoble 
life  of  security. 

One  will  scoff  at  this  philosopher  who  in  his 
peaceful  study  or  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  at  last  pacified,  intoxicates  himself  in  this  way 
with  the  beauty  of  perilous  and  tumultuous  life. 
He  confesses  that  his  own  existence  is  most  un- 
worthy and  despicable  enough  when  compared  to 
that  of  the  conqueror  or  the  explorer.  But  we  all 
do  what  we  can,  and  he  does  also  what  he  must 
when  he  gives  himself  merrily  to  his  true  passion. 
The  philosopher  himself  has  his  own  passionate 
and  dangerous  life.  He  has  his  passionate  life,  and 
his  passion  is  the  obstinate  and  sorrowful  quest 
of  truth.  He  is  himself  one  of  those  that  "  seek 
with  mourning."  He  has  his  dangerous  life  and 
in  order  to  conquer  truth  he  defies  the  prejudices 
and  the  scorn  of  men.  He  also  defies,  and  that  is 
more  sorrowful,  the  resistance,  the  revolts  and  the 


164  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

cries  of  anguish  of  the  "  old  man  "  who  must  be 
always  torn,  bit  by  bit,  if  one  is  to  put  him  off  and  to 
liberate  and  install  the  new  man.  There  you  have 
the  little  battlefield  and  the  little  garden  of  sorrows 
of  the  philosophers,  which,  after  all,  are  not  without 
their  greatness,  as  Nietzsche  said  in  the  finest  page 
that  he  wrote,  and  one  of  the  finest  pages  ever 
written.  In  media  vita. — "  No,  life  has  not  de- 
ceived me.  On  the  contrary  I  find  it  from  year  to 
year  richer,  more  desirable,  and  more  mysterious, 
since  the  day  when  came  to  me  the  great  liberator, 
the  thought  that  life  might  be  an  experience  to  the 
man  that  seeks  knowledge,  instead  of  a  duty,  a 
fatality  and  a  trickery.  Let  knowledge  itself  be 
another  thing  to  others,  such  as  a  resting  couch,  or 
the  road  to  a  resting  couch,  or  a  game  or  a  careless 
stroll.  To  me  it  is  a  world  of  dangers  and  vic- 
tories in  which  the  heroic  sentiments  display  them- 
selves and  have  also  their  dancing  place  and  their 
hall  for  games.  Life  is  a  means  to  knowledge. 
With  this  principle  in  our  heart,  we  may  not  only 
live  bravely,  but  also  live  with  joy  and  laugh  for 
sheer  joy.  And  how  could  one  know  how  to 
laugh  and  live  well  if  one  had  not  experienced  first 
both  the  fighting  and  the  victory  ?  " 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DEVELOPING  THE  THEORY. 

Upon  reaching  this  stage  in  the  evolution  of  his 
thought  Nietzsche  was,  I  beheve,  confronted  with 
an  objection  which  my  readers  must  have  felt  more 
than  once  in  the  previous  chapters.  This  rule, 
this  ideal,  this  standard  of  life,  applies  but  to  a 
small  number  of  men.  It  is  not,  of  course,  a  moral- 
ity since  we  know  that  Nietzsche  will  not  hear  that 
word.  It  is  not  a  morality,  since  morality  should 
of  course  be  universal.  It  is  not  even  a  general 
doctrine,  not  a  doctrine  with  any  degree  of  gen- 
erality. It  is  not  a  thing  that  it  were  good  to  tell 
many  men,  nor  even  one  that  could  be  told  to  many 
men.  It  is  something  like  the  password  of  an 
elite ;  something  like  a  code  of  rules  for  the  use  of 
the  general  staff  of  humanity. 

Could  you  really  go  to  the  masses,  to  the  coarse 
masses  and  tell  them :  be  selfish  and  give  yourselves 
up  to  your  passions ;  be  selfish  not  merely  without 
any  scruple  but  even  dashingly,  cheerfully  and  en- 
thusiastically;  give  yourself  to  your  passions  with 
all  your  courage?  The  mass,  the  mob,  has  —  you 
are  well  aware  of  it  —  but  a  dull  selfishness  and 
low  passions.  Their  expansion  —  you  know  it  well 
—  not  only  will  have  nothing  of  strength  or  beauty, 

165 


l66  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

nothing  of  the  Apollonian  or  the  Dionysian;  but 
it  will  prove,  moreover,  abominably  detrimental  to 
the  mass,  and  would  fast  lead  it  beyond  any  doubt 
to  death.  What  then  do  you  make  of  your  rule  of 
life?  How  would  you  overcome  this  difficulty? 
Q«o  vadisf  or  simply  quidf 

Nietzsche  realized  very  well  this  natural  and  un- 
avoidable objection.  He  realized  it  not  merely  at 
a  certain  precise  stage  in  the  evolution  of  his 
thought  as  I  supposed  it  a  minute  ago  for  the  sake 
of  convenience  and  to  make  clearer  my  exposition; 
he  realized  it  throughout  the  whole  of  his  intel- 
lectual life  or  very  near,  as  we  can  see  when 
reading  almost  any  of  his  works.  He  was  driven  to 
it  as  into  a  corner  through  his  own  motion.  He 
was  not  concerned  about  it ;  he  neither  avoided  it  nor 
went  around  it.  He  dashed  straight  at  it,  and  ac- 
cepting it  in  its  whole;  he  destroyed  it. 

He  answered :  "  what  you  say  is  right.  My  rule 
of  life  is  not  meant  for  the  masses,  it  is  meant  for 
an  elite  that  alone  represents  humanity,  that  alone 
is  truly  humanity,  and  that  should  govern  human- 
ity and  truly  despise  the  masses,  their  temperament, 
complexion,  customs  and  prejudices.  My  theory 
is  essentially  and  radically  aristocratic." 

As  is  nearly  always  the  case  this  was  at  once 
cause  and  effect.  Nietzsche's  theory  drove  him  per- 
force to  aristocratism,  and  Nietzsche,  who  was  an 
aristocrat  by  nature  and  temperament,  has  derived 
his  theory  from  his  own  aristocratic  tendencies. 
Nietzsche  was  an  aristocrat  because  he  was  an  im- 
moralist  and  he  was  an  immorahst  because  he  was 


DEVELOPING  THE   THEORY  167 

an  aristocrat.  His  master  idea  which  was  at  the 
same  time  philosophical  and  historical,  was  that 
morality,  had  been  invented  by  the  people  to  re- 
strain, muzzle,  curb  and  paralyze  those  that  were 
strong  and  those  that  were  beautiful,  those  that 
wished  to  live  in  force  and  beauty;  and  that  the 
people  being  patient  and  crafty  had  thoroughly  suc- 
ceeded. The  people  with  their  lower  instincts  can 
live  neither  in  beauty  nor  in  force.  They  want  to 
live  dully,  peacefully,  safely  and  gently,  and  never 
to  do  great  things.  They  love  the  dangerous  life 
not  at  all.  They  want  to  eat  bread,  to  look  on  at  the 
circus,  to  reproduce  themselves,  to  drink  sometimes, 
to  sing  a  few  silly  songs,  to  work  as  little  as  possible, 
and  not  at  all  if  they  can,  and,  finally,  to  die  very 
late.  They  have  their  own  art,  at  all  times  the  same, 
and  one  that  characterizes  their  lives.  It  is  an 
art  without  imagination  or  lyricism,  without  sublim- 
ity, without  even  the  appearance  or  the  intention 
thereof.  It  is  an  art  made  up  of  timid,  plaintive, 
and  insipid  mawkishness,  an  art  of  romances  or  of 
painting  in  the  moving,  touching  manner.  It  is  an 
art  purely  elegiac  or  if  you  like  altogether  gemiith- 
licli.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  a  coarsely  comic  art 
made  up  of  heavy  jokes  and  jests  of  the  knockabout 
variety.  There  is  nothing  in  this  popular  art  of 
any  period  that  urges  action,  to  enterprise,  to  an 
energetic,  diligent,  rough,  strong  and  beautiful 
life.  At  all  times  and  everywhere  the  people  is  a 
"  herd  "  of  shy  and  supine  creatures. 

Feeling    above    themselves   either   a    conquering 
race  which  was  not  their  own  and  which  was  imbued 


l68  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

with  energetic  instincts  and  an  aspiration  towards 
the  great  and  the  beautiful,  or  a  race  sprung  from 
their  own  midst  but  which  had  acquired,  through 
auto-selection,  and  then  heredity,  these  same  in- 
stincts, the  people  took  very  late,  but  take  them 
they  did,  measures  destined  to  muzzle  and  ener- 
vate that  superior  race. 

These  measures  were  of  various  kinds.  In  cer- 
tain countries  the  superior  kind  had  very  wisely 
provided  against  its  union  by  marriage  with  the 
plebeians.  The  plebes  had  no  rest  until  they  had 
caused  that  injustice  and  that  "  immorality  "  to  dis- 
appear and  until  they  had  softened,  cowed,  de- 
virilized  the  superior  race  through  a  mixture  of 
blood. 

In  other  countries  the  same  mob  felt  conscious  of 
its  numbers  and  knew  that,  if  there  was  union,  num- 
ber was  a  force.  There  the  plebe  weighed  down  the 
elite  with  its  own  weight ;  organizing  agricultural, 
industrial  or  military  strikes,  taking  advantage  of 
the  failures  of  the  superior  race,  it  entered  the  city 
and  the  government  thereof  and  practically  drowned 
the  superior  race  in  its  own  stream.  And  that  was 
the  end  of  the  conquering,  civilizing,  artistic  and 
ascendant  city,  of  the  city  that  honored  human- 
ity and  was  leading  it  to  a  brilliant  destiny. 

Finally,  and  almost  everywhere,  the  people  in- 
vented morality.  That  is  to  say  they  submitted  the 
superior  kind  to  their  own  ideas,  having  devised 
some  means  to  give  and  impose  them  and  to  make 
them  seem  to  be  good,  sane,  just,  compulsory  and  di- 
vine ;  and  that  whoever  lacked  those  ideas  should  be 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  169 

despised.  That  was  an  incredibly  clever  trick,  a 
miraculous  one;  it  was  stupefying  —  but  truly 
woithy  of  admiration.  We  must  evince  no  surprise 
at  the  fact  that  it  took  a  very  long  time  to  succeed, 
since  it  is  almost  fabulous;  but,  in  the  end,  it  suc- 
ceeded. The  plebes  succeeded  in  almost  every  coun- 
try in  introducing  the  scruple  in  the  soul  of  the  elite; 
they  caused  the  elite  to  say  :  "  It  is  possible  that  what 
I  am  doing  is  not  good;  it  is  possible  that  it  is  not 
fair  for  me  to  do  great,  strong  and  beautiful  things 
by  myself  or  with  the  help  of  people  who  do  not 
care  for  them.'' 

Scruple  is  a  disease,  like  repentance.  As  soon  as 
that  disease  was  introduced  in  the  soul  of  the  elite, 
no  matter  where,  the  elite  was  stupefied  by  it  as 
one  becomes  paralyzed  by  one  of  the  poisons  that 
act  on  the  nervous  centers.  Little  by  little,  fol- 
lowing the  progress  of  the  intoxication,  it  abdicated 
and  the  instinct  of  mediocrity  gradually  replaced 
the  instinct  of  greatness;  and  that  was  a  sort  of 
social  bemiring. 

Do  you  wish  for  a  sketch  of  this  popular  morality? 
"  Where  do  you  think  morality  could  possibly  find 
its  most  dangerous  and  vindictive  advocates?  Here 
is  a  man,  a  failure,  who  has  not  enough  of  a  mind 
to  rejoice  in  it  and  who  has  just  enough  culture  to 
know  what  he  lacks.  Bored  and  sickened  he  has 
nothing  but  scorn  for  himself.  Possessing  a  small 
inheritance  he  is  unfortunately  deprived  of  the  last 
solace,  of  the  blessedness  of  work,  the  forget  ful- 
ness of  one's  self  in  a  daily  task.  It  may  be  that 
such  a  man,  who  is  at  heart  ashamed  of  his  own 


I70  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

existence,  is,  moreover,  harboring  a  few  small  vices. 
He  cannot  prevent  himself  from  being  more  and 
more  corrupted.     He  is  irritated  by  a  luxury  to 
vi^hich  he  has  no  right,  or  by  a  society  too  intellectual 
for  him  to  lead  it.     In  such  a  failure  the  mind  be- 
comes a  poison,  culture  becomes  a  poison,  ownership 
becomes  a  poison,  solitude  becomes  a  poison.     Such 
a  man,  poisoned  through  and  through,  ends  by  fall- 
ing into  a  permanent  state  of  vindictiveness.     He 
breathes  revenge  and  a  will  to  vengeance.     What  do 
you  think  he  needs,  absolutely  needs  to  give  himself 
from  outside  himself  the  appearance  of  being  supe- 
rior to  the  most  intellectual  men,  to  create  for  him- 
self the  joy  of  exacted  vengeance,  at  least  in  his  im- 
agination ?     Morality.     You  may  swear  to  it ;  it  will 
always  be  morality;  always  big  words  of  morality, 
always  the  big  drum  of  justice,  wisdom,  reason, 
holiness  and  virtue;  always  a  stoic  bearing  (how 
well  does  stoicism  hide  that  which  one  does  not 
have!).     Always  the  cloak  of  wise  silence,  of  con- 
descension, of  gentleness,  no  matter  what  names  one 
may  give  to  the  cloak  of  the  ideal  under  which  hide 
themselves  the  incurable  belittlers  of  themselves  who 
are  at  the  same  time  the  incurably  vain  ones  of  the 
earth.     I    must    not    be    misunderstood.     It    does 
happen   sometimes    that    from   among   these   born 
enemies  of  the  mind  there  are  developed  those  rare 
samples  of  humanity  whom  the  people  venerate  as 
saints  and  sages.     It  is  from  among  such  men  that 
emerge   those  monsters  of  morality  who  make   a 
'  splash  '  who  make  history.     St.  Augustine  was  one 
of  them.     The  dread  of  the  mind,  the  vengeance 


DEVELOPING  THE  THEORY  I7I 

against  the  mind,  alas,  how  often  have  those  vices 
which  are  endowed  with  a  true  dynamic  power 
given  birth  to  virtue !  Aye,  to  virtue !  Between 
ourselves,  the  philosophers'  pretension  to  wis- 
dom, that  most  insane  and  immoderate  pretension, 
which  has  been  raised  here  and  there  on  earth,  was 
it  not  always  to  this  day,  in  India  as  well  as  in 
Greece,  first  of  all  a  hiding  place  ?  Sometimes  per- 
haps it  took  up  the  cloak  of  education,  that  point 
of  view  which  hallows  so  many  lies,  and  they 
have  wished  to  show  some  tender  care  for  beings 
who  are  developing  themselves  and  growing,  for 
disciples  that  must  be  often  protected  from  them- 
selves, from  a  faith  in  their  teacher.  But  most  of 
the  time  wisdom  is  a  hiding  place  for  philosophers 
in  that  which  they  dissimulate  themselves  because 
of  their  age,  their  weariness,  their  lukewarmth  or 
their  hardening,  because  they  are  sensing  that  they 
are  nearing  their  end  with  the  sagacity  or  the  instinct 
that  animals  have  before  their  death.  They  set 
themselves  apart,  become  silent,  choose  solitude  and 
take  refuge  in  caves;  then  become  sages.  How  so? 
Is  then  wisdom  a  place  where  the  philosopher  hides 
from  his  own  mind  ?  " 

This  is  the  kind  of  people,  the  worst  of  whom  be- 
ing venomous  impotent  men,  poisoned  with  their 
own  venom,  and  the  best  being  timid  and  weak- 
ened, sick  men,  and  all  of  them  jealous,  who  have 
constituted  at  all  times  the  grand  army  of  morality. 
•Morality  is  plcbcianism  against  the  elite.  It  is 
the  conspiracy  and  the  plot  of  all  the  cowardly  in- 
stincts  against   the    lofty   and   energetic    instincts. 


172  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

It  is  a  plot  against  the  ideal.  It  gives  itself  as  an 
ideal  and  succeeds,  through  I  know  not  what  tricks 
of  a  cunning  slave,  in  being  taken  seriously,  in  be- 
ing worshiped  by  the  very  people  against  whom 
it  had  been  framed. 

The  slaves'  shifts  of  which  I  spoke  are  many. 
The  inferior  kind  exploits  pity  for  instance  and 
that  is  the  most  debilitating,  anti-social  feeling  that 
can  exist.  When  pity  enters  the  heart  of  the 
superior  kind  the  latter  is  lost  and,  with  it,  the 
nation  and  a  whole  civilization,  and  one  has  to  begin 
all  over  again. 

Again,  the  inferior  kind  "  unlearning  modesty 
swells  its  needs,"  and  its  general  ideas  which  are 
but  forms  of  its  needs,  "  until  it  makes  of  them 
cosmic  and  metaphysical  values."  The  philosophers, 
if  that  kind  produces  any  and  that  does  happen,  are 
admirable  in  operating  the  transformation.  They 
give  out  as  general  principles  for  the  guidance  of 
humanity  what  is  but  the  needs  of  the  plebe,  desires 
of  the  plebe,  jealousies  of  the  plebe  and  confused  as- 
pirations of  the  plebe  towards  the  particular  form  of 
happiness  that  suits  it.  Again,  the  inferior  kind 
invents  real  sophisms  such  as  that  of  the  equality 
of  men  without  any  one  ever  being  able  to  discover 
upon  what  ground,  upon  what  scientific,  historical, 
ethnographical  or  ethical  basis,  or  any  basis  you 
may  fancy,  such  an  absurdity  ever  could  have  been 
built.  This  idea  of  equality  either  the  inferior 
kind  extracts  from  religion  or  it  invents  a  religion 
to  confirm  it.  If  there  exists  a  religion  which  as- 
serts that  all   men  are   equal  before  the   Gods   it 


DEV'ELOPING   THE   THEORY  I73 

gradually  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  consequently 
—  and  what  a  consequence !  —  all  men  must  be 
socially  equal.  Or  else  if  it  has  once  asserted  that 
all  men,  because  they  are  men  —  and  what  a  rea- 
son !  —  are  equal,  it  imagines  a  religion  that  en- 
dows this  childishness  with  the  authority  of  a 
divine  rule  and  the  majesty  of  a  celestial  dogma. 
Or  again,  these  two  ideas,  these  two  confused 
sentiments,  the  social  and  the  religious,  develop 
themselves  together  without  any  one  being  able  to 
discover  which  has  generated  the  other,  and  they 
lend  each  other  mutual  help  and  support,  and  they 
vie  with  each  other  to  suppress  the  superior  kind 
and  to  drown  and  dissolve  it  in  the  plebe. 

Again,  the  inferior  kind  invents  the  idea  of 
plurality,  the  idea  of  the  right  of  plurality:  what 
must  be  done  is  what  suits  the  greatest  number ; 
therefore  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  count  heads. 
This  is  a  confusion  ludicrous  if  involuntary,  and 
hateful  if  deliberate,  between  the  qualificative  and 
the  quantitive.  Is  it  a  matter  of  counting  or  of 
weighing?  The  general  i§  one  and  the  army  a 
hundred  thousand.  Is  it  the  one  who  is  one  who 
must  obey  those  who  are  a  hundred  thousand? 
If  the  quantity  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  quality 
it  is  incontestable  that  it  is  the  general  who  must 
obey  or  rather  who  should  not  exist  at  all. 

Such  are  the  principal  shifts  conscious  or  un- 
conscious used  by  the  inferior  kind  against  the 
superior. 

Let  us  note  that  it  also  happens,  and  that  is  not 
the  least  important  factor  in  this  evolution,  that 


174  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  "  superior  kind  "  gives  way  and  ends  in  **  de- 
faulting." "  The  superior  kind  defaults,  I  mean 
the  kind  whose  inexhaustible  fecundity  and  power 
maintained  the  belief  in  mankind.  Think  of  what 
we  owe  to  Napoleon :  almost  every  one  of  the 
superior  hopes  of  the  century."  The  superior  kind 
disappears  owing  to  exhaustion,  following  a  long 
effort,  to  the  neglect  of  renewing  itself  by  means 
of  the  admission  to  its  fold  of  the  best  elements  of 
the  inferior  kind,  or  through  forgetfulness  of  its 
principles  and  rules  of  action,  through  carelessness, 
disgust,  refining  or  artistic  delicacy.  The  latter  is 
one  of  its  own  particular  instincts  and  one  of  the 
best  but  it  should  have  nothing  but  its  own  share: 
good  taste.  In  that  case  good  taste,  in  the  end,  en- 
croaches upon  the  other  instincts  and  destroys  the 
equilibrium.  If  through  these  means  the  superior 
kind  allows  itself  to  be  conquered  and  seduced  by 
the  coarse  sophisms  of  the  plebe,  it  is  lost  and 
with  it  goes  the  civilization  it  had  created  and  of 
which  it  is  still,  but  futilely  bearing  the  banner. 
For  "  in  this  wise  the  whole  existence  of  the  nation 
is  vulgarized;  because  so  long  as  the  masses  rule 
they  tyrannize  the  exceptional  men,  which  causes 
the  latter  to  lose  faith  in  themselves  and  drives 
them  to  nihilism." 

Let  us  take  a  trip  along  history  and  watch  through 
the  accidents  of  the  road  and  of  the  stages  and 
through  the  regressions,  which  we  shall  neglect, 
the  joint  progress  of  this  plebeianism  and  of  this 
morality,  which  are  two  diverse  forms,  hardly 
diverse  and  hardly  distinct,  of  one  and  the  same 


DEVELOPING  THE  THEORY  I75 

thing.  The  Greeks  and  the  Romans,  these  crea- 
tors of  two  civiHzations,  and,  together,  of  all  known 
civilization,  Greeks  and  Romans  were  at  the  same 
time  absolute  aristocrats  and  inimoralists.  Do  not 
speak  to  me  of  the  Athenian  democracy,  a  democ- 
racy of  a  few  thousand  citizens  set  up  above  three 
hundred  thousand  mongrels  and  slaves.  Greeks 
and  Romans  were  thorough  aristocrats.  They 
were  also  thorough  immoralists.  They  knew  but 
one  duty,  the  duty  to  the  State.  Please  understand 
that  this  means  that  here  we  have  a  superior  kind 
which  acknowledges  no  duties  towards  the  slaves 
or  the  foreigner,  toward  the  plebeian  or  towards 
woman,  and  which  knows  but  one  duty,  that  to  main- 
tain itself ;  for  it  is  the  State,  to  maintain  itself  in 
health,  in  strength,  in  greatness,  in  beauty  and  in  an 
infinite  capacity  for  expansion  and  development. 

Such  was  the  whole  morality  of  the  Greeks  and 
the  Romans,  and  that  comes  back  to  saying  that 
Greeks  and  Romans  had  no  morality.  It  is  enough 
to  read  Cicero's  De  Officiis,  an  admirable  book 
withal  it  dates  from  the  beginning  of  the  deca- 
dence, well  to  understand  that  a  Roman  knew 
no  duties  beyond  those  to  his  country.  To  tell 
the  iruth,  these  latter  duties  he  knew  well. 

The  Greeks  and  the  Romans  were  therefore  pure 
aristocrats  and  i)ure  immoralists.  A  superior  kind 
established  itself  one  does  not  know  very  well  in 
what  way,  upon  a  rock  promontory,  upon  seven 
hills  overlooking  vast  plains.  That  was  the  nucleus 
of  a  great  city  and  it  attracted  many  individuals  of 
the  inferior  kind.     It  disciplined  them,  ruled  them, 


176  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

and  never  thought  of  but  one  thing:  to  be  strong, 
great  and  beautiful.  For  that  purpose  it  imposed 
upon  itself  and  upon  its  servants  enormous  and  in- 
cessant sacrifices.  That  is  all.  There  is  not  a  sha- 
dow of  morality  in  this. 

They  had  a  religion. 

Precisely.  That  is  a  very  curious  point.  They 
had  a  religion ;  but  it  was  a  religion  altogether 
of  the  city,  all  consecrated  to  the  city,  all  civic. 
The  gods  were  but  a  sort  of  celestial  Senate 
above  the  Senate  of  here  below,  a  sort  of  immortal 
Senate  above  that  of  the  mortals.  The  gods  be- 
longed to  the  city.  They  were  superior  citizens  and 
enlightened,  severe  and  somewhat  jealous  protectors 
of  the  city.  They  were  Olympian  aristo'i.  That 
religion  was  patriotic  and  was  even  as  the  very 
sanctuary  of  patriotism.  If  it  contained  any 
amount  of  morality,  and  it  did  that  we  must  ad- 
mit because  there  would  always  be  infiltrations,  at 
least  it  contained  so  little  of  it  that  it  was  neces- 
sary for  philosophers  to  invent  and  create  piecemeal 
a  morality  beside  that  religion  and  outside  of  it 
and  somewhat  against  it,  which  last  fact  it  some- 
times made  plain  to  the  philosophers.  Nothing 
shows  better  that  morality  was  at  first  most  foreign 
to  these  peoples.  They  were  patriots.  They  were 
religious  from  patriotism  or  rather  they  had  the 
cult  of  the  motherland,  but  they  were  aristocrats 
and  consequently  immoralists.  And  these  peoples 
are  the  greatest  that  antiquity  and  even  the  whole 
of  history  has  produced,  and  they  shed  untold  glory 
upon  the  planet  which  we  inhabit. 


DEVELOPING   THE    THEORY  I77 

See  now,  further  away,  between  the  Mediterran- 
ean peoples  and  the  Oriental  world,  a  small  nation 
belonging  to  another  race.  That  nation  also  is 
patriotic ;  it  also  has  its  national  god,  its  local  god, 
a  provincial  god,  as  it  were.  But  its  people  are 
not  aristocrats.  They  are  all  of  them  plebeians  and 
they  have  a  most  peculiar  morality  which  would 
greatly  astonish  a  Roman  or  a  Greek.  This  little 
nation  has  invented  sin.  Understand  by  this  that 
sin  is  not  to  them  an  action  detrimental  to  a  fellow 
citizen  and  therefore  a  deed  against  the  city.  Sin 
is  to  them  a  deed  against  God,  an  action  that  dis- 
pleases God  and  can  be  wiped  ofif  through  repentance 
alone,  through  a  prayer  for  pardon,  a  prayer  for 
grace,  through  contrition  and  self-abasement  before 
the  ofTendcd  divine  majesty.  This  was  a  most 
peculiar  conception.  It  was  equalitarian,  because, 
in  presence  of  the  divine  greatness,  all  human  great- 
ness is  equal,  being  in  itself  a  mere  nothing,  and  the 
sin  of  the  powerful  and  of  the  rich  man  is  no  less 
grievous  than  any  other,  taken  as  an  offence  to  God. 
It  was  ecclesiastical,  because  if  there  were  men  in 
the  confidence  of  the  divine  thought  and  interpreters 
thereof,  they  had  to  be  the  judges  of  sins  and  hold 
rich  and  poor  alikp,  strong  and  weak  alike,  to 
account  for  them.  It  was  moral,  because  here  was 
no  matter  of  a  country  to  be  defended,  of  a  city  to  be 
served,  of  a  will  to  power  to  be  used  in  helping 
and  supporting  others.  It  was  a  matter  of  a  code 
given  by  a  God,  imposed  ujion  men  in  the  interests 
of  that  God  and  for  his  glory.  That  code  com- 
mands imperatively,  gives  no  reasons  and  must  be 


178  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

obeyed  because  it  commands  and  for  that  reason 
alone.     The  categorical  imperative  was  born. 

There  you  have  morality,  in  this  case  altogether 
religious.  Elsewhere  it  will  assume  another  shape 
and  follow  different  paths  to  success.  But  there 
you  have  it  such  as  we,  the  men  of  today,  know 
it.  There  it  stands  in  its  main  features :  "  Origins 
of  sin."  Sin  as  we  view  it  today  wherever  Chris- 
tianity rules  or  has  ruled,  sin  is  a  Jewish  sentiment 
and  a  Jewish  invention.  Considering  this  basic  plan 
of  all  Christian  morality,  Christianity  has  in  effect 
sought  to  Juda'ise  the  whole  world.  We  get  the 
best  idea  of  the  amount  of  success  it  achieved  in 
Europe  from  the  degree  of  strangeness  which  the 
Greek  antiquity  —  a  world  free  from  the  notion  of 
sin  —  retains  before  our  sensibility  in  spite  of  all 
the  goodwill  to  bridge  over  and  to  assimilate  which 
has  never  been  lacking  throughout  whole  genera- 
tions and  in  the  minds  of  many  men.  **  Only  if  thou 
repentest  shall  God  be  merciful  to  thee."  Such 
words  would  have  aroused  hilarity  and  anger  in  a 
Greek.  He  would  have  exclaimed :  "  Here  are 
slaves'  sentiments  1  "  Here,  among  the  Hebrews,  a 
God  is  accepted  who  is  powerful,  supremely  power- 
ful and  yet  he  is  an  avenging  and  vindictive  God. 
His  power  is  so  great  that  one  can  generally  cause 
him  no  damage,  unless  it  be  in  what  pertains  to 
honor.  Every  sin  is  a  sign  of  lack  of  respect  in 
him,  a  crimen  laesae  majestatis  divinae,  and  it  is 
nothing  more  than  that.  Contrition,  dishonor, 
abasement,  here  are  the  first  and  last  conditions 
upon  which  his  grace  depends.     What  he  demands 


DEVELOriNG   THE   THEORY  1/9 

therefore  is  the  re-establishment  of  his  divine 
honor,  reparation  for  his  divine  honor.  That,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  sin  may  have  caused  a  damage, 
may  have  entailed  a  profound  and  growing  disaster 
which  is  snatching  and  strangling  one  man  after 
another,  that  matters  little  to  this  oriental  despot 
who  is  enthroned  above  in  the  heavens.  The  sin 
was  a  lapse  towards  him  and  not  towards  humanity ! 
He  grants  also  that  indifference  to  the  natural  se- 
quence of  sin  to  the  man  to  whom  he  has  given 
his  grace.  God  and  humanity  (or  the  city)  are 
here  imagined  so  far  apart,  so  much  in  opposition 
to  each  other  that  it  is  fundamentally  impossible  to 
sin  against  the  latter.  Ever>'  deed  must  be  con- 
sidered only  in  view  of  its  supernatural  conse- 
quences, without  a  care  for  the  natural  conse- 
quences. Thus  the  Jewish  sentiment  will  have  it 
because,  to  them,  everything  that  is  natural  is  in  itself 
unworthy.  The  Greeks,  on  the  contrary,  willingly 
accepted  the  idea  that  sacrilege  also  and  even  theft 
could  be  endowed  with  dignity,  as  was  the  case 
with  Prometheus.  ...  It  was  in  their  need  to 
imagine  dignity  in  sacrifice,  and  to  incorporate  it 
therein  that  they  had  invented  tragedy  —  an  art  and 
a  joy  which,  notwithstanding  the  poetical  gifts 
and  the  taste  of  the  Jews  for  the  sublime,  remained 
deeply  foreign  to  that  people. 

This  morality  took  other  paths  also  as  I  said, 
and,  under  somewhat  different  aspects,  we  see  its 
birth  among  the  Greeks,  in  the  Socratic  times, 
while  it  remained  in  a  stationary  state  with  the 
Jews,  later  to  expand  and  to  pour  itself  out  like  a 


l80  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

torrent.  The  following  idea  took  root  among  the 
Greeks  of  the  days  of  Socrates:  Morality  —  that 
is  the  becoming  personally  better,  that  is  the  being 
loved  by  one's  neighbors  and  one's  kin,  that  is 
the  being  harmless  —  morality  is  something  which 
is  superior  to  everything  and  must  regulate  every- 
thing, in  relation  to  which  all  things  must  be  regu- 
lated, and  to  which  all  things  must  be  subordinated. 

You  may  mention  science.  That  means  little 
and  the  greatest  savant  is  the  man  that  knows  that 
he  knows  nothing.  But  if  there  does  exist  some- 
thing that  calls  itself  knowledge,  it  only  has  any 
value  (i)  if  it  is  not  opposed  to  morality  (2)  if 
it  tends  thereto,  leads  thereto,  if  it  serves  and 
supports  morality. 

You  may  mention  politics  and  sociology.  Politics 
only  have  a  value  if  their  aim  is  to  make  men 
happy  by  making  them  better  men  and  if  they 
achieve  that  result,  and  consequently  if  they  act, 
strictly  and  undividedly,  as  soldiers  of  morality, 
workers  of  morality  and  handmen  of  morality. 

You  may  mention  the  arts.  They  are  despicable 
matters,  like  cooking  or  cosmetics,  unless  perhaps, 
(but  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  are  capable  of 
that)  they  serve  to  teach  or  to  prompt  morality. 

There  lay  the  whole  of  Socratism  —  to  bring  all 
human  occupations,  all  human  efforts  and  all  human 
recreations  back  to  morality  as  being  their  ulti- 
mate aim,  to  admit  them  as  justified  by  that  aim 
and  sanctified  thereby  if,  that  is,  they  do  tend 
towards  it,  and  to  proscribe  and  brand  them  if  it 
is  proved,  or  evident  or  merely  likely,  that  they  are 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  l8l 

not  tending  to  morality  or  that  they  cannot  reach 
it :  "  The  conmion  feature  in  the  history  of  moral- 
ity since  Socrates,  is  the  attempt  to  bring  the  moral 
values  above  all  the  other  values  in  order  that  they 
become,  not  only  the  judges  and  guides  of  life,  but 
also  the  judges  and  guides  (i)  of  knowledge  (2) 
of  the  arts  (3)  of  the  political  and  social  aspira- 
tions. To  become  better  is  considered  the  only 
task.  All  the  rest  is  but  a  means  to  that  end  —  or 
else  it  is  a  perturbation,  an  obstacle  or  a  danger 
and  must  be  fought  therefore  to  destruction.  A 
similar  movement  can  be  traced  in  China  and  there 
is  one  also  in  India." 

What  are  the  reasons  for  that  state  of  mind. 
( I )  The  herd  instinct  directed  against  the  strong 
and  independent  men.  (2)  The  instinct  of  the  dis- 
inherited and  suffering  ones  directed  against  those 
who  are  happy.  (3)  The  instinct  of  the  mediocre 
ones  directed  against  the  exceptions.  So  soon  as 
any  single  one  of  these  instincts  assumes  some 
strength  in  a  human  race,  it  upsets  the  order  of 
the  values.  No  longer  is  it  the  strength  of  body 
and  heart  which  is  prized.  It  is  the  timidity  and 
the  regularity  of  private  life.  No  longer  is  it 
splendor,  fine  lu.xury,  artistic  and  patrician  magnify 
icence  which  are  looked  upon  with  admiration. 
It  is  suitable  property,  the  narrow  economic  life 
of  the  small  bourgeois  or  sometimes  the  abstinence 
or  the  useless  asceticism  of  the  stoic,  the  cynic  or 
the  cenobite.  No  longer  is  it  genius  which  draws 
admiration ;  on  the  contrary  it  is  looked  upon  as 
dangerous   and   almost    insolent.     Our    admiration 


l82  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

goes  to  mediocrity  of  the  mind,  of  the  soul,  of  the 
character  and  of  the  daily  life,  which  mediocrity 
is  held  to  be  the  ideal  that  all  should  realize,  and 
it  goes  to  a  social  level  beyond  which  no  one  must 
venture,  the  penalty  being  ostracism  or  death.  It 
was  after  the  Greco-Roman  world  had  already 
started  upon  that  descent  that  Christianity  ap- 
peared. 

We  must  set  Jesus  apart,  of  whom  but  little  is 
known  and  who  seems  to  have  been,  if  we  try  to 
visualize  him  through  the  contradictions  of  doc- 
trine and  of  tendencies  shown  by  the  Gospels,  much 
more  an  aristocratic  mystic  than  a  plebeian  —  we 
must  set  him  apart  because  the  idea  of  justice  was 
unbearable  to  him,  and  in  these  matters  the  notion 
of  justice  is  the  one  touchstone.  It  is  quite  likely 
that,  as  Aristophanes  took  Socrates  for  a  sophist, 
so  did  the  Pharisees  take  Jesus  for  a  plebeian,  for 
the  last  of  the  Prophets,  for  a  demagogue;  while 
he  was  perhaps  the  very  opposite  of  one.  How- 
ever, we  do  not  know.  We  must  needs  set  Jesus 
apart  since  of  him,  all  things  considered,  nothing 
is  known. 

But  Christianity,  such  as  it  was  built  up  by  St. 
Paul  and  his  disciples,  was  the  greatest  moral  and 
plebeian  movement  of  known  history.  In  sooth  it 
was  the  very  advent  of  plebeianism  as  I  have  previ- 
ously said:  "The  main  idea  was  to  bring  to  the 
top  a  certain  category  of  souls.  It  was  a  popular 
insurrection  in  the  midst,  first  of  a  sacerdotal 
people,"  then  of  nations  that  had  remained  aristo- 
cratic albeit  they  already  had  some  plebeian  tend- 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  183 

encies  and  therefore  were  all  prepared  for  the 
arrival  of  the  new  one.  It  was  a  pietist  move- 
ment sprung  from  people  of  the  depths,  fishermen, 
toll-gatherers,  women,  sick  people,  then  the  plebeian 
mob  of  Antioch,  Corinth,  Rome,  the  African  cities, 
the  mob  of  all  the  capitals  and  all  the  great  towns. 

Note  the  long  abstention  of  the  peasants.  The 
peasants  are  the  last  pagans  (pagani)  not  merely 
because  news  reaches  them  more  slowly  and  be- 
cause they  are  the  backward  ones  in  all  periods, 
but  also  because  the  spirit  of  submission  to  the 
exception  is  a  primitive  sign,  while  the  spirit  of 
equality,  that  is  to  say,  the  spirit  of  domination  of 
the  mediocrity  over  the  exception,  is  a  modern 
sign  in  each  civilization,  otherwise  a  symptom  of  the 
decomposition  of  that  civilization. 

Note  the  prompt  and  ardent  adhesion  of  the 
women.  It  may  perhaps  have  been  due  to  senti- 
mentalism,  to  emotion  felt  at  the  story  of  the  mar- 
tyrdom, the  hysteria  of  the  Cross,  a  disease  since 
then  very  much  studied  and  well  known.  It  was 
due  to  this  especially,  which  is  more  simple  and 
natural,  that  woman  was,  in  the  antiquity,  a  slave 
and  that  the  notion  of  equality  struck  her  at  once 
as  an  arrow.  It  was  due  to  this  also,  that  woman 
is  essentially  mediocre  in  the  precise  sense  of  the 
word,  more  intelligent  than  the  man  in  the  lower 
classes,  and  less  intelligent  than  the  man  in  the 
higher  classes,  that  she  often  reaches  a  most  re- 
markable intellectual  development  but  never  reaches 
genius,  that  she  is  therefore  mediocre,  average 
and  consequently  very   favorable,  as  soon  as  she 


184  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

can  grasp  its  meaning,  as  soon  as  she  can  get  an 
inkling  of  it,  to  the  rule  of  the  middle  classes,  to 
the  reign  of  the  mediocre  ones  and  to  the  domina- 
tion of  the  mediocre  ones  over  the  exceptional  ones 
and  to  the  proscription  of  the  exceptions.  Femin- 
inity is  a  ready-made  plebeianism,  a  plebeianism 
natural.  Democracies  will  naturally  tend  to  the 
establishment  of  political  suffrage  for  women;  they 
would  even  accommodate  themselves  very  easily 
to  the  political  suffrage  of  the  women  alone,  to  be 
ruled  by  the  women.  That  sort  of  government 
would  truly  prove  very  good  for  them  and  ensure 
them  with  certainty  that  kind  of  happiness  and 
social  welfare  which  has  their  preference.  It  was 
due  to  this  also,  that  women,  much  more  than  men, 
need  morality,  need  that  the  weak  be  held  sacred 
and  the  strong  held  in  check,  bridled  with  scruples, 
shackled  and  choked  with  a  conscience,  hesitating 
about  his  rights  and  blushing  of  his  very  strength. 

Thus  armed,  Christianity  vanquished  the  old 
world.  It  persuaded  humanity  that  it  needed  to  be 
mediocre,  low,  somewhat  ugly,  not  led  by  the  strong, 
courageous  and  intelligent  men,  not  illustrated  and 
nobly  intoxicated  by  the  artists,  but  led  by  those 
who  fast  and  pray,  and  scornful  of  the  men  who 
have  the  sense  of  the  beautiful. 

The  strong,  the  courageous,  the  intelligent  men 
and  the  artists  never  abdicate,  or  at  least  they 
never  resign,  and  they  have,  later  on,  partly  regained 
their  positions  even  in  Christianity,  as  priests, 
bishops,  popes,  preachers,  founders  of  religious 
orders,    painters,    sculptors    and    architects.     Yet 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  185 

for  a  long  time  the  spirit  of  Christianity  remained 
what  we  have  just  seen.  It  was  never  altogether 
abolished  nor  even  modified  to  any  large  extent,  and 
this  has  had  mighty  consequences,  as  we  shall  see. 

The  Roman  Empire  was  enervated  and  disor- 
ganized, in  the  precise  meaning  of  that  word;  its 
organism  was  undermined  by  a  number  of  causes 
but  especially  by  that  spirit  of  Christianity,  con- 
cerning which  it  was  under  no  illusion  is  was 
proved  by  the  persecutions  with  which  it  attempted 
to  defend  itself.  It  fell  a  fairly  easy  prey  to  the 
Barbarians.  The  Barbarians  were  neither  intelli- 
gent nor  artistic  but  they  were  courageous  and 
strong,  organized  according  to  force,  and  free  from 
any  spirit  of  weakness  in  their  constitution  or  their 
habits.     They  won. 

They  won,  but  Christianity  seduced  and  capti- 
vated them ;  it  domesticated  them.  How  did  it  ever 
succeed  in  that?  Nietzsche  points  out  the  fact,  ex- 
presses his  surprise  but  does  not  explain  it:  "A 
nihilistic  religion  comes  from  a  tired  and  stale 
nation  and  outlives  all  the  violent  instincts  inherent 
to  that  nation.  It  is  gradually  carried  into  another 
sphere  and  penetrates  at  last  young  nations  zvhich 
have  not  yet  lized  at  all}  How  strange  that  is! 
A  happiness  of  decline  and  of  eventide,  a  shepherd's 
happiness  preached  to  barbarians,  to  Germans! 
How  much  need  there  was  first  of  all  to  Germanize 
and  to  barbarize  all  that!  To  those  that  had 
dreamed  of  a  Valhalla!     To  those  that  found  all 

1  Underlined  by  Nietzsche,  perhaps  as  an  explanation? 


i86 


ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 


happiness  to  lay  in  warfare !  A  supernational 
religion,  preached  in  the  midst  of  a  chaos  wherein 
there  did  not  even  exist  any  nations ! " 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  difficult  to  find  the 
explanation.  It  may  be  that  those  barbaric  warriors 
were  seduced  by  the  legend  of  God  Who  Was  Made 
Man,  of  God  making  Himself  man  in  order  to  bring 
glad  tidings  to  humanity  and  suffering  death  through 
that  undertaking.  That  sentimental  idea  must  have 
a  very  great  hold  upon  all  men  and  especially  upon 
simple  and  rough  men.  "  Oh,  had  I  but  been 
there  with  my  barons !  "  ^ 

It  may  be  that  the  Barbarians,  as  they  began  to 
win  and  advanced  through  fertile  lands  and  found 
milder  climates,  lost  some  of  their  barbarism,  ceased 
to  think  that  all  happiness  lay  in  warfare  and  took 
readily,  as  they  settled  down  and  became  founders 
of  nations,  to  a  religion  of  rest,  quiet  and  gentle- 
ness. 

It  may  be  that  they  felt  those  priests  to  be  at 
heart  their  auxiliaries,  as  being  the  enemies  of  the 
old  Romans,  of  the  traditionalist  Romans  who 
were  attached  to  their  gods  and  the  memory  of 
them,  attached  to  paganism  as  holding  the  strength 
of  their  ancient  institutions  and  civilization,  or  as 
having  brilliantly  expressed  them.  Barbarians  and 
Christian  priests  were  equally  enemies  of  ancient 
Rome.  That  was  enough  for  them  to  agree,  or,  at 
least,  it  was  the  road  to  an  agreement.    Then  again, 

1  Exclamation  attributed  to  Clovis,  the  founder  of  the 
Prankish  dynasty  (465-511)  when  he  was  converted  to 
Christianity. — (Translator's  Note.) 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  iSj 

as  Nietzsche  remarked  with  his  usual  finesse:  "  they 
must  have  begun  by  very  much  Germanizing  and 
barbarizing  all  that." 

The  fact  is  there  at  all  events.  The  Barbarians 
became  Christians  and  that  may  have  been  an  evil. 
The  world  was  handed  over  to  Christianity. 

Christianity,  in  truth,  evolved  itself.  It  ceased 
to  be  demagogical.  It  became  aristocratic  and  as- 
pired, in  the  person  of  its  leaders,  either  at  sharing 
the  power  of  government  or  at  monopolizing  it 
wholly  by  ruling  the  ruling  power  itself.  It  ceased 
to  be  anti-artistic,  anti-Apollonian  or  anti-Dionysian, 
became  most  refined  in  the  person  of  its  chiefs  and 
called  the  artists  and  the  other  joys  of  life  to  its 
fold.  The  ancient  spirit  was  taking  its  revenge. 
The  Renaissance,  beloved  of  the  Popes,  was  but  a 
resurrection  of  Hellenism  and  of  the  Hellenic  spirit. 

But  please  note  two  points.  First  of  all,  the 
Christian  spirit,  the  true  Christian  spirit,  remained 
throughout  in  the  popular  clergy,  in  the  clergy- 
people,  in  that  clergy  which  in  olden  days  elected 
the  bishops,  in  that  clergy  which  in  olden  days  en- 
joyed the  right  to  marry,  in  that  dispossessed  small 
clergy  —  large  in  numbers  —  which  is  the  democ- 
racy of  the  Church,  which  shall  never  be  very  fond 
of  Rome,  which  shall  never  love  the  powerful  ones, 
either  temporal  or  spiritual,  which  shall  never  love 
the  artists,  and  which  shall  speak  the  demagogical 
and  socialistic  language  against  the  powerful  ones 
of  the  earth  at  the  times  of  trouble  and  license, 
that  is  at  the  times  when  it  can  speak.  On  the  eve 
of  the   French   Revolution  that  clergy  was   ready 


l88  ON  READING   NIETZSCHE 

to  make  it  and  contributed,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  very 
strongly  to  its  first  approach  and  its  first  victories. 

There  have  ever  been  two  superimposed  Chris- 
tianities. One  was  a  perverted  Christianity,  an 
Hellenized  and  Romanized  Christianity  of  which  it 
could  be  said :  "  Graecia  capta  ferum  victor  em 
cepit."  The  other  was  the  true  Christianity  of 
Jewish  origin,  of  the  "  Hebrew  Prophet "  brand, 
the  democratic,  plebeian  and  plebeianistic  Christian- 
ity which  kept  alive,  and  caused  to  persevere  in  the 
being.  Saint  Paul's  own  spirit. 

Note  the  second  point.  It  is  not  more  important, 
but  more  striking,  than  the  first.  Withal,  they  are 
at  bottom  the  same.  Whenever  Christians  have 
wished  to  revert  to  the  primitive  Church,  to  the 
spirit,  the  character,  the  moral  state  and  the  state 
of  soul  of  the  primitive  Church,  it  was  a  plebeian 
revolution  which  they  made  or  attempted.  Thus 
came  the  anti-Roman,  anti-aristocratic,  anti-artistic, 
very  soon  equalitarian  Lutheran  movement,  which 
became  republican  and  mingled  with  socialistic  ideas, 
feelings  or  tendencies. 

Thus  came  the  anti-Roman,  anti-aristocratic,  anti- 
literary,  anti-artistic,  profoundly  "  moral  "  Jansen- 
istic  movement,  as  much  moral  as  Calvinism,  which, 
moreover,  was  of  French  origin,  and  unconsciously 
Republican,  and  upon  this  point  Louis  XIV  was  un- 
der no  delusion. 

Something  should  be  said  for  the  benefit  of  the 
fools  who  attack  religion,  or,  if  one  likes,  of  the 
men  who  attack  religion  in  a  foolish  manner: 
"  The  struggle  against  the  Church  is  certainly  also, 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  189 

among  other  things,  the  struggle  of  the  more  vulgar, 
more  gay,  more  familiar  and  superficial  natures 
against  tlie  domination  of  the  men  who  are  heavier, 
deeper,  more  contemplative,  that  is  to  say,  more 
wicked  and  distrustful,  who  long  ruminate  the  sus- 
picions that  come  to  them  concerning  the  value  of 
existence  and  also  their  own  value.  The  vulgar  in- 
terest of  the  people,  its  joy  of  the  senses,  its  *  good 
heart '  revolted  against  those  men.  The  whole 
Roman  Church  rests  upon  a  southern  mistrust  of 
human  nature,  a  mistrust  always  ill-understood  in 
the  north.  That  mistrust  was  inherited  by  south- 
em  Europe  from  the  deep  East,  mysterious  antique 
Asia  and  its  contemplative  spirit.  Already  Prot- 
estantism was  a  popular  revolt  in  favor  of  the 
reliable,  candid  and  superficial  people.  The  North 
was  ever  heavier  and  more  insipid  than  the  South."  ^ 
We  find  then  that  there  existed  between  the  high 
Catholic  clergy  and  the  low  Catholic  clergy,  and  in 
a  more  general  way,  between  the  Catholics  above 
and  those  below,  and  in  a  still  more  general  way, 
between  the  Christians  above  and  those  below,  the 
same  difference,  the  same  antinomy  and  the  same 
hidden  struggle  which  exist  at  all  possible  times 
between  the  superior  and  the  inferior  kinds.  Yet 
there  always  remained  in  Christianity  that  primitive 
spirit  in  favor  of  the  inferior  kind,  that  deeply 
plebeian  primitive  spirit,  that  primitive  spirit  which 
had  freed  woman  and  .slave,  that  primitive  spirit 
which  had  called  the  poor  to  the  Kingdom  of  God 

1  Fapiict  wisely  had  this  quotation  followed  by  a  query 
mark  in  his  text.— (.Traiiblator's  Note.) 


IQO  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

and  represented  the  entrance  of  the  rich  therein  as 
impossible,  that  primitive  spirit  which,  all  things 
considered,  was  truly  a  protest  and  an  insurrection 
against  the  whole  of  antiquity  and  against  all  prin- 
ciples and  ideas  —  aristocratism,  slavery,  virilism, 
taste  for  the  strong  and  beautiful  —  upon  which 
antiquity  had  rested,  and  which  had  given  it  all  its 
virtue  and  all  its  strength. 

Then  came  the  French  Revolution  which  was  but 
an  incident.  It  was  nevertheless  a  considerable 
incident  in  the  history  of  plebeianism.  It  was  an 
explosion  of  that  plebeian,  equalitarian,  optimistic 
and  moral  spirit.  As  we  all  know,  the  whole 
French  Revolution  is  expressed  in  two  words : 
Equality,  National  Sovereignty.  The  rest  was  so 
very  little  its  true  spirit  that  it  was  obsolete  from 
the  outset,  was  very  soon  abandoned  and  has  never 
been  seriously  taken  up  again  unless  by  the  enemies 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  those  it  injured  in 
their  interests.  Equality  and  national  sovereignty 
are  nothing  else  but  pure  and  simple  plebeianism, 
unalloyed  and  utterly  irreconcilable  with  anything 
that  is  not  itself.  Because  note  that  if  equality 
is  destructive  of  liberty,  which  has  been  proved  a 
hundred  times,  and  which  facts  have  proved  in  the 
past,  are  proving  now  and  shall  ever  prove  better 
than  could  any  reasoning,  national  sovereignty  itself 
destroys  equality.  It  assuredly  destroys  equality  it- 
self because,  if  it  is  plurality  that  rules  without 
any  corrective,  what  does  take  place?  This,  to  wit 
that  the  superior  kind,  the  elite,  the  exceptional 
ones    are    purely    and    simply    suppressed.     Their 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  I9I 

thoughts,  feelings,  judgments,  tastes  do  not  count. 
They  are  sacriticed.  So  that  there  is  not  equality 
between  all  the  citizens;  there  is  oppression  of  the 
superiors  by  the  inferiors,  of  the  elite  by  the  "  herd- 
animals,"  or,  if  you  like,  of  the  exceptions  by  the 
average.  Democracy  suppresses  the  exceptions. 
It  organizes  the  oppression  of  the  smaller  by  the 
greater  number.  It  turns  the  "  superior  kind  "  into 
a  caste  of  pariahs.     That  is  not  at  all  equality. 

Yet  that  is  precisely  what  the  Revolution  wanted. 
It  wanted  at  heart  neither  liberty,  nor  fraternity 
nor  even  equality.  It  wanted  the  sovereignty  of  the 
greater  number,  that  is  to  say,  the  oppression  and 
hence  the  short  and  swift  suppression  of  the  higher 
class,  that  is  to  say  again,  pure  and  simple  plebeian- 
ism.  The  Revolution  was  plebeianism  itself  in  its 
purest,  most  decisive  and  conscious  state :  "  It  was 
the  French  Revolution  that  placed  definitely  and 
solemnly  the  scepter  in  the  hand  of  the  '  good  '  man, 
the  lamb,  the  ass,  the  goose,  and  of  all  that  is  dull 
and  brawling,  ripe  for  the  mad  house  of  modem 
ideas." 

This  of  course,  in  the  name  of  morality,  in  the 
name  of  that  plebeian  morality,  the  evolution  of 
which  we  hcve  carefully  followed.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  consider  that  Rousseau,  Kant  and  Robes- 
pierre are  hand  in  hand:  Rousseau  the  very  type  of 
the  plebeian  moralist,  with  his  sentimentalist  effu- 
sions, his  moralizing  pathos,  resembling  that  of  a 
Calvinist  pastor,  his  taste  for  life  mediocre,  peace- 
ful and  idyllic,  his  gcmiitli,  his  hatred  of  tlie  arts 
and  the  letters;   Kant  with  his  fine  philosophical 


192  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

intelligence,  but  a  man  that  remained  ever  as  if 
hypnotized  by  the  vision  of  a  beautiful  moral 
building  to  be  erected  upon  an  unshakable  basis ; 
Robespierre  with  his  soul  of  plebeian  priest,  nar- 
row, authoritative  and  fanatical.  "  All  philosoph- 
ers have  constructed  their  monuments  under  the 
seduction  of  morality ;  Kant  no  less  than  the  others 
(more  than  the  others).  Their  intention  merely 
seemed  to  bear  towards  certainty,  truth  and  knowl- 
edge. But,  in  truth,  they  aimed  at  the  majestic 
monument  of  morality,  to  use  once  more  the  inno- 
cent language  of  Kant  who  held  it  to  be  his  task 
and  his  work,  to  be  the  task  '  less  brilliant  but 
not  without  merit '  to  '  level  and  straighten  the 
ground  upon  which  that  majestic  moral  edifice  was 
to  be  built.'  Alas,  he  did  not  succeed;  quite  the 
contrary,  we  must  admit  today.  With  intentions  of 
that  kind,  Kant  was  truly  the  son  of  his  century. 
.  .  .  He  also  had  been  bitten  by  that  moral  tarantula 
that  stung  Rousseau;  he  also  felt  his  soul  weighed 
down  by  that  moral  fanaticism  of  which  another 
disciple  of  Rousseau  believed  himself  and  pro- 
claimed himself  to  be  the  executor.  I  mean  Robes- 
pierre, who  wished  to  found  upon  earth  the  empire 
of  wisdom,  justice  and  virtue  (his  speech  of  June 

7,  1794)  " 

This  line  is  continued  unto  our  own  days  by  the 

true  heirs  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  only 

logical  ones.     They  are  the  Socialists  of  all  shades, 

"  the  most  honest  and  the  most  stupid  race  in  the 

world."     They  simply  wish,  and  with  much  reason 

if  one  were  to  admit  the  revolutionary  principle. 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  I93 

that  equality  should  become  real,  that  there  be  no 
longer  any  superior  kind,  in  any  way,  neither  by 
riches,  or  titles,  or  honors,  or  more  complete  edu- 
cation, or  higher  culture.  They  wish  to  suppress 
every  exception.  They  want  the  reign  of  equality, 
justice  and  concord  established  upon  earth :  **  That 
reign  would  be,  in  all  imaginable  cases,  that  of 
mediocrity  and  one  resembling  that  of  the  Empire 
of  China."  In  admiring  the  Chinese  as  they  were  so 
fond  of  doing,  the  philosophers  of  the  XVTIIth 
century  seem  to  have  understood  what  they  were 
saying  and  to  have  distinctly  seen  where  led  the 
theories  that  were  dear  to  them. 

But  this  thought  of  destroying  the  elite  and  sup- 
pressing the  exception  is  a  dream.  It  is  a  very 
fanciful  idea.  The  exception  is  a  natural  thing 
and  will  always  happen.  The  men  of  elite  are  the 
product  of  nature  and  will  always  be  born. 

To  be  sure ;  yet  to  begin  with  it  is  not  quite 
true.  Plebeianism  by  preventing  the  superior  kind 
from  refining  and  strengthening  itself  by  heredity 
reduces  its  numbers.  On  the  other  hand,  in  pre- 
venting the  superior  kind  from  developing  itself 
through  a  distinct  education  and  culture,  and  care- 
fully reducing  it  to  the  rudimentary  education, 
which  can  be  given  to  all  it  reduces  its  numbers  still 
further.  Plebeianism  reduces  the  superior  kind  to 
its  minimum.  It  brings  it  back  to  being  composed 
merely  of  the  individuals  that  are  born  very  distin- 
guished and  most  exceptional,  and  whose  force  of 
ascent  nothing  could  stop. 

Moreover,   plebeianism    still    further   diminishes 


194  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  superior  kind  through  discouraging  it.  When 
plebeianism  rules,  what  advantage  could  a  man  who 
is  born  superior  find  in  cultivating,  developing  or 
merely  allowing  others  to  see  his  superiority?  His 
own  interest  is  to  hide  it.  To  show  it  would  be  to 
make  himself  suspected.  To  show  it  would  be  to 
denounce  himself.  To  show  it  would  be  to  pro- 
claim himself  candidate  for  a  pariah,  and  would 
mean  that  very  soon  he  would  be  classified  in  fact 
as  a  pariah.  Under  a  plebeian  regime  of  what  use 
is  it  to  have  any  merit?  It  is  the  contrary  which 
proves  advantageous.  "  Let  us  be  mediocre  and 
not  give  ourselves  the  pain  of  becoming  oppressed." 
Thus  reason  many  men  of  merit,  and  thus  again  is 
the  superior  kind  further  decreased.  Minimum  of 
a  minimum. 

There  remain  nevertheless  in  the  end  those  very 
few  men  who  are  very  superior,  who  cannot  agree  to 
hide  or  to  strangle  their  superiority,  or  who  can  in 
truth  neither  repress  it,  so  strong  is  it,  nor  hide  it, 
so  radiant  is  it.  But  plebeianism  is  not  sorry  that 
these  men  should  exist,  because  they  threaten  it 
with  no  danger  owing  to  their  small  number,  and  be- 
cause they  afford  it  matter  for  triumph.  There 
must  be  pariahs  so  that  one  may  feel  one's  self  part 
of  a  dominating  class,  and  there  must  be  oppressed 
men  so  that  we  can  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  feeling 
ourselves  oppressors.  Do  you  think  that  the  French 
plebeianism,  a  very  benevolent  one  but  one  that  is 
nevertheless  jealous  of  its  legitimate  prerogatives, 
did  not  derive  great  pleasure  from  seeing  that  re- 
nown?   Taine  and  Pasteur  had  no  influence  what- 


DEVELOPING   THE   TUEORY  I95 

soever  in  the  state  and  were  nothing  in  the  city. 
That  is  the  very  victory  of  democracy,  that  genius 
enjoys  less  rights  in  it  than  mediocrity  or  sottish- 
ness.  Consequently  it  is  necessary  that  there  should 
be  men  of  genius  for  democracy  to  be  able  to  taste 
its  triumph  in  setting  them  aside,  for  democracy 
to  be  able  even  to  take  consciousness  of  itself  in  re- 
pelling them  and  in  saying  to  them :  "  I  know  ye 
not."  If  the  superior  kind  had  utterly  disappeared, 
plebeianism  would  feel  the  boredom  of  the  too  com- 
plete victories,  and  would  feel  no  longer  the  pleas- 
ure of  being  itself.  It  would  lose  the  passion  of 
itself,  which  is  both  the  salt  and  the  spur  of  life. 

Therefore  the  natural  movement  of  rising  ple- 
beianism consists  in  diminishing  by  all  the  means 
that  we  have  seen  the  superior  kind,  while  pre- 
serving a  few  specimens,  or  rather  in  congratulating 
itself  that  there  shall  always  be  a  few  samples 
thereof. 

This  decadence  of  a  society  or  a  civilization  in  the 
same  measure  as  aristocratism  declines  is  quite 
patent  to  the  eyes  if  we  consider  the  three  centuries 
which  we  have  studied.  The  various  "  sensibili- 
ties "of  the  last  three  centuries  can  best  be  ex- 
pressed as  follows:  "Aristocratism:  Descartes, 
the  rule  of  reason,  proof  of  the  sovereignty  in  the 
will  —  Feminism:  Rousseau,  reign  of  sentiment, 
proof  of  the  sovereignty  in  the  senses,  lies. — 
Animalism:  Schopenhauer,  reign  of  the  appetites, 
proof  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  animal  instincts, 
more  true  but  also  more  gloomy. 

"  The  17th  century  is  aristocratic  ;  it  co-ordinates, 


196  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

it  is  haughty  towards  everything  that  is  animal, 
stern  towards  the  heart,  deprived  of  sentimental- 
ism,  non-German,  ungemiithlich;  opposed  to  what 
is  burlesque  and  natural.  It  has  the  generaHzing 
spirit,  sovereign  towards  the  past;  because  it  be- 
lieves in  itself.  At  heart  it  holds  much  more  of 
the  ferocious  beast  and  to  retain  mastery  practices 
the  ascetic  discipline.  The  century  of  the  strength 
of  will  is  also  that  of  the  violent  passions.  The 
1 8th  century  is  dominated  by  woman.  It  is  en- 
thusiastic, witty,  and  colorless,  but  it  has  spirit 
for  the  service  of  its  aspiration  and  of  the  heart. 
It  is  libertine  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  most  intel- 
lectual things,  and  undermines  all  the  authorities. 
It  is  intoxicated,  lucid,  human  and  sociable;  it  is 
false  before  itself,  and  at  heart  quite  rascally. 
The  19th  century  is  more  animal-like,  more  earthy, 
uglier,  more  realistic,  more  mobbish,  and  because 
of  that  *  better  and  more  honest '  .  .  .  but  weaker 
in  will,  sad,  confusedly  exacting,  but  fatalistic. 
Neither  fear  nor  veneration  in  the  presence  of  rea- 
son any  more  than  in  the  presence  of  the  heart; 
secretly  persuaded  of  the  domination  of  the  appetites 
.  .  .  morality  itself  is  reduced  to  an  instinct  (com- 
passion)." 

Does  plebeianism  with  the  instincts  we  now  know 
to  be  its  own,  capture  the  State?  It  is  interesting 
to  know  what  it  does  with  the  State  and  let  us  say 
it  right  here  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  to  know  how 
thoroughly  it  disfigures  it.  What  is  the  State  in  its 
principle?  It  is  a  league  of  defense  against  an 
enemy  considered  to  be  powerful,  dangerous  and 


DEVELOPING  THE   THEORY  I97 

imminent.  "  The  community  is  at  its  beginning  the 
organization  of  the  weak  ones  to  balance  threaten- 
ing forces,  ...  or  in  order  to  become  superior  to 
those  threatening  forces."  Most  of  the  time  that 
organization  merely  consists  in  placing  one's  self 
in  the  hands  of  a  man  himself  powerful,  who  in 
truth  differs  not  at  all  from  the  powerful  enemy 
against  whom  one  wishes  to  defend  one's  self.  "  The 
brigand,  and  the  strong  man  who  promises  to  a 
community  that  he  will  protect  it  against  the  brigand, 
are  probably  both  very  much  alike,  with  this  one 
difference,  that  the  second  reaches  his  own  advan- 
tage by  a  diflferent  path,  that  is  to  say,  by  means  of 
regular  tributes  which  the  community  shall  pay  him 
and  no  longer  by  war  levies.  The  same  relation 
exists  between  the  merchant  and  the  pirate  who  can 
both,  for  a  long  time,  remain  one  and  the  same  man : 
as  soon  as  one  of  the  two  functions  seems  no  longer 
a  prudent  one,  they  take  up  the  other.  At  bottom, 
even  to-day,  the  merchant's  morality  is  but  the  mo- 
rality of  a  better-advised  pirate:  it  is  a  matter  of 
buying  as  cheaply  as  possible,  of  spending  unless  in- 
dispensable nothing  but  the  expenses  of  the  under- 
taking, and  of  selling  as  dearly  as  possible.  The 
essential  point  is  that  this  powerful  man  promises  to 
balance  the  brigand :  the  weak  ones  see  therein  the 
possibility  for  them  to  live.  Because  it  is  necessary 
either  that  they  should  group  themselves  to  form  an 
equivalent  power  or  else  that  they  submit  themselves 
to  a  man  who  is  able  to  counterbalance  that  power. 
As  a  rule  the  preference  is  given  to  that  second 
process,  because  it  checks  two  dangerous  men,  the 


198  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

first  by  means  of  the  second  and  the  second  by  the 
advantage  which  is  guaranteed  him.  The  protector 
gains  in  well-treating  those  that  are  bound  to  him 
so  that  they  may  both  feed  themselves  well  and  feed 
him  well." 

There  you  have  the  origin  of  the  State.  There  is 
here  nothing  absolutely  that  is  "  moral."  It  is  a 
bargain.  Some  men  have  bought  a  beast  of  prey  to 
turn  it  into  a  defender.  Thus  does  one  buy  a  watch 
dog.  Nothing  is  more  natural  or  legitimate,  but 
there  is  absolutely  no  morality  in  it. 

But  let  us  go  still  a  little  further  and  note  that 
the  State  is  even  an  organized  immorality.  "  Prin- 
ciple :  only  the  individuals  feel  themselves  to  be  re- 
sponsible. Collectivities  have  been  invented  to  do 
things  that  the  individual  does  not  have  the  cour- 
age to  do "  and  that  he  scruples  to  do.  "  The 
whole  of  altruism  is  a  result  of  the  intelligence  of 
the  private  man ;  societies  are  not  altruistic  towards 
each  other.  The  Commandment  to  love  one's 
neighbor  has  not  yet  been  broadened  by  any  one 
into  the  commandment  to  love  the  others.  On  the 
contrary  we  must  consider  as  true  what  we  find  in 
the  laws  of  Manu,"  as  a  parenthesis,  one  may 
add  that  this  shows  why  the  study  of  the  societies, 
by  the  consideration  of  what  they  are  at  the  pres- 
ent time  or  by  historical  researches,  is  so  useful  to 
help  the  knowledge,  the  true  knowledge  of  man. 
Effectively  "  all  communities  and  all  societies,  be- 
cause they  are  a  hundred  times  more  sincere,  are  a 
hundred  times  more  instructive  concerning  the  na- 
ture of  man  than  the  individual  could  be  since  he  is 


DEVELOPING  THE  THEORY  I99 

too  weak  to  have  the  courage  of  his  desires.  .  .  . 
The  study  of  society  is  so  precious  because  man 
is  much  more  naive  as  part  of  a  society  than  man 
as  an  individual.  Society  never  considered  virtue 
otherwise  than  as  a  means  to  attain  force,  power 
and  order." 

But  what  is  the  mechanism  of  this  strange  trans- 
formation ?  How  does  man,  as  member  of  a  com- 
munity, become  so  different  from  man  as  individual? 
"  How  is  it  that  a  great  number  of  people  can  do 
things  to  which  the  individual  would  never  agree? 
By  the  division  of  the  responsibilities,  the  com- 
mandment and  the  execution."  It  is  that  which 
introduces,  or  helps  to  introduce,  "  virtue,  duty, 
love  of  country  and  love  for  the  sovereign  "  and 
it  is  that  which  "  maintains  pride,  severity,  force, 
hatred  and  vengeance  —  in  short  all  those  typical 
characteristics  which  are  repugnant  to  the  member 
of  the  herd." 

Therefore  we  must  know  it  and  know  how  to  say 
it;  "the  State  is  organized  immorality:  within,  in 
the  form  of  police  (to  you  as  individual,  inquisition 
and  informing  are  no  doubt  hateful),  police  and  the 
penal  code  (individually  you  do  not  lay  claim  to 
the  right  to  punish),  et  cetera;  —  outwardly  in  the 
form  of  will  to  power,  warfare,  conquest  and  ven- 
geance." 

What  does  plebcianism  do  with  that  State  which 
is  immorality,  or  if  you  like,  organized  immoralism? 
//  transfers  to  the  State  the  virtues  of  the  private 
wan.  It  wishes  to  put  in  the  State  the  virtues  of 
the  private  man,  and  is  utterly  convinced  that  the 


20O  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

"  virtues  "  of  the  private  man  must  also  be  State 
virtues.  In  other  words,  it  kills  the  State.  It 
wants  the  State  to  be  a  good,  peaceful,  gentle,  shy, 
kindly  and  weak  man.  It  wants  the  State  not  to 
go  to  war.  It  would  like  the  State  not  only  not 
to  attack  but  to  defend  itself  as  little  as  possible.  It 
would  like  the  State  to  turn  the  other  cheek  and 
to  give  moreover  its  coat  when  it  has  had  its  mantle 
taken  off.  It  wants  the  State  not  to  judge,  or  to 
judge  with  the  indulgence  of  a  weak  and  even  of 
a  weakened  family  man.  Strange  enough,  it  wants 
the  State  to  be  everything  and  to  do  nothing,  in 
which  —  albeit  it  is  somewhat  burlesque  —  plebeian- 
ism  is  right.  For  in  order  that  the  superior  kind  be 
repressed  and  diminished  it  is  necessary  that  the 
State  constituted  by  the  plebeian  plurality  be  every- 
thing. And  in  order  that  the  State  possess  the 
virtues,  ideas,  sentiments  and  habits  of  the  plebeian 
plurality  it  is  necessary  that  it  do  nothing  at  all. 
Thus  the  plebe  organizes,  if  we  may  call  it  organ- 
ize, a  State  destructive  of  the  superior  kind  (or  of 
a  large  part  of  the  superior  kind)  and  disarmed 
on  the  one  hand  against  the  greedy  foreigner  and 
on  the  other  hand  internally  against  the  violent  or 
the  subtly  gnawing  enemies,  the  witting  or  unwit- 
ting enemies  of  society.  This  plebeian  State  curbs 
the  highest  portion  of  the  superior  kind  as  we  saw 
and  it  also  destroys  the  slightly  less  high  portion 
of  the  superior  kind  in  this  wise  that  it  calls,  attracts 
and  leads  it  on  towards  politics  and  therein  ex- 
hausts it.  "  All  the  political  and  social  conditions 
together  are  not  worthy  of  gifted  minds  being  com- 


DEVELOPING   THE   THEORY  201 

pelled  to  busy  themselves  with  them.  Such  a  wast- 
ing of  minds  is  after  all  more  serious  than  a  state 
of  misery.  Politics  are  a  field  of  work  for  the 
more  mediocre  brains  and  that  field  of  work  should 
not  be  open  to  the  others.  .  .  .  What  we  see  today 
is  a  great  and  ridiculous  folly,  today  when  not  only 
do  all  men  think  that  they  should  be  daily  informed 
as  to  the  political  matters  but  when  everybody  wants 
also  to  take  active  part  in  these  matters  at  every 
minute  and  is  prepared  to  abandon  his  own  work 
to  do  that.  Public  security  is  much  too  dear  at 
the  price.  And  what  is  madder  still,  one  reaches,  in 
this  wise,  the  opposite  of  public  security,  as  our  own 
excellent  century  is  busy  demonstrating  as  if  it  had 
never  been  demonstrated  before.  To  ensure  for 
society  security  against  thieves  and  fire,  to  make  it 
infinitely  easy  for  all  kinds  of  trade  and  relations 
and  to  transform  the  State  into  a  providence,  in  the 
good  or  the  bad  sense  of  the  word  —  these  are  in- 
ferior, low,  mediocre  and  not  at  all  indispensable 
aims.  And  no  delicate  instruments  should  be  ap- 
plied to  them.  Our  period,  albeit  it  speaks  much 
of  economy,  is  very  wasteful  indeed;  it  wastes  the 
most  precious  thing,  brains." 

More  especially  is  the  plebeian  State  a  disarma- 
ment of  the  State  and  a  denaturation  of  the  State, 
a  transformation  of  the  State  into  a  dissociation,  a 
transformation  of  the  State  into  a  thing  which  has 
but  private  virtue,  and  no  State  virtue  whatsoever,  a 
transformation  of  the  general  strength  into  general 
weakness. 

In  the  course  of  its  ascent  towards  that  goal  the 


202  ON   READING  NIETZSCHE 

plebe  proceeds  as  follows :  "  The  oppressed  ones, 
the  inferior  ones,  all  the  great  mass  of  the  slaves  and 
the  semi-slaves  want  to  reach  power.  First  degree : 
they  free  themselves,  they  release  themselves,  doing 
it  first  in  their  own  imagination;  they  recognize 
each  other  and  they  impose  themselves.  Second 
degree:  they  take  up  the  fight;  they  wish  to  be 
recognized;  equal  rights,  'justice.*  Third  degree: 
they  insist  upon  privileges;  they  force  the  repre- 
sentatives of  power  onto  their  side.  Fourth  de- 
gree: they  want  the  power  for  themselves  alone 
and  they  take  it," —  and  thus  they  succeed  in  estab- 
lishing a  State,  of  which  we  have  just  seen  the 
picture. 

This  State,  which  we  must  need  worship,  this 
State,  which  is  the  "  new  idol,"  is  fictitious,  lying  and 
deadly.  "  Somewhere  there  are  still  peoples  and 
herds,  but  not  with  us,  my  brethren :  here  there  are 
states.  A  state?  What  is  that?  Well,  open  now 
your  ears  unto  me,  for  now  will  I  say  unto  you  my 
word  concerning  the  death  of  peoples.  A  state,  is 
called  the  coldest  of  all  cold  monsters.  Coldly  lieth 
it  also ;  and  this  lie  creepeth  from  its  mouth.  '  I, 
the  state,  am  the  people.'  It  is  a  lie!  Creators 
were  they  who  created  peoples,  and  hung  a  faith 
and  a  love  over  them:  thus  they  served  life.  De- 
stroyers are  they  who  lay  snares  for  many,  and 
call  it  the  state :  they  hang  a  sword  and  a  hundred 
cravings  over  them.  Where  there  is  still  a  people, 
there  the  state  is  not  understood,  but  hated  as  the 
evil  eye,  and  as  sin  against  laws  and  customs.  This 
sign  I  give  unto  you :   every  people  speaketh  its 


DEVELOPING   THE  THEORY  203 

language  of  good  and  evil :  this  its  neighbor  under- 
standeth  not.  Its  language  hath  it  devised  for  itself 
in  laws  and  customs.  But  the  state  lieth  in  all 
languages  of  good  and  evil ;  and  whatever  it  saith,  it 
lieth ;  and  whatever  it  hath,  it  hath  stolen.  False 
is  everything  in  it ;  with  stolen  teeth  it  biteth,  the 
biting  one.  False  are  even  its  bowels.  Confusion 
of  language  of  good  and  evil;  this  sign  I  give  unto 
you  as  the  sig^  of  the  state.  Verily,  the  will  to 
death  indicateth  this  sign !  Verily,  it  beckoneth 
unto  the  preachers  of  death !  Many,  too  many  are 
born :  for  the  superfluous  ones  was  the  state  devised ! 
See  just  how  it  enticeth  them  to  it,  the  many-too- 
many!  How  it  swalloweth  and  cheweth  and  re- 
cheweth  them !  '  On  earth  there  is  nothing  greater 
than  I :  it  is  I  that  am  the  regulating  finger  of  God ' 
—  thus  roareth  the  monster.  And  not  only  the 
long-eared  and  short-sighted  fall  upon  their  knees ! 
Ah,  even  in  your  ears,  ye  great  souls,  it  whisper- 
eth  its  gloomy  lies!  Ah,  it  findeth  out  the  rich 
hearts  that  willingly  lavish  themselves !  Yea,  it 
findeth  you  out  too,  ye  conquerors  of  the  old  God! 
Weary  ye  became  of  the  conflict,  and  now  your 
weariness  serveth  the  new  idol !  Heroes  and  hon- 
orable ones,  it  would  fain  set  up  around  it,  the  new 
idol!  Gladly  it  basketh  in  the  sunshine  of  good 
consciences, —  the  cold  monster!  Everything  will  it 
give  you,  if  ye  worship  it,  the  new  idol :  thus  it 
purchaseth  the  luster  of  your  virtue,  and  the  glance 
of  your  proud  eyes.  It  seeketh  to  allure  by  means 
of  you,  the  many-too-many!  Yea,  a  hellish  artifice 
hath  here  been  devised,  a  death-horse  jingling  with 


204  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

the  trappings  of  divine  honors !     Yea,  a  dying  for 
many  hath  here  been  devised,  which  glorifieth  itself 
as  life:  verily,  a  hearty  service  unto  all  preachers 
of  death !     The  state,  I  call  it,  where  all  are  poison- 
drinkers,  the  good  and  the  bad :  the  state,  where  all 
lose  themselves,  the  good  and  the  bad:  the  state, 
where  the  slow  suicide  of  all  —  is  called  '  life.'     Just 
see  these  superfluous  ones!    They  steal  the  works 
of  the  inventors  and  the  treasures  of  the  wise.     Cul- 
ture, they  call  their  theft  —  and  everything  becom- 
eth  sickness  and  trouble  unto  them !    Just  see  these 
superfluous    ones!     Sick    are    they    always;    they 
vomit  their  bile,  and  call  it  a  newspaper.     They 
devour  one  another,  and  cannot  even  digest  them- 
selves.   Just  see  these  superfluous  ones!     Wealth 
they  acquire,  and  become  poorer  thereby.     Power 
they  seek  for,  and  above  all,  the  lever  of  power, 
much    money  —  these    impotent    ones!     See    them 
clamber,    the    nimble    apes!     They    clamber    over 
one    another,    and    then    scuffle    into    the    mud 
and    the    abyss.     Towards    the    throne    they    all 
strive :  it  is  their  madness  —  as  if  happiness  sat  on 
the  throne !     Ofttimes  sitteth  filth  on  the  throne, — 
and  ofttimes  also  the  throne  on  filth.     Madmen  they 
all  seem  to  me,  and  clambering  apes,  and  too  eager. 
Badly  smelleth  their  idol  to  me,  the  cold  monster: 
badly  they  all   smell  to  me,   these  idolaters.     My 
brethren,  will  ye  suffocate  in  the  fumes  of  their 
maws   and   appetites!     Better   break  the   windows 
and  jump  into  the  open  air !     Do  go  out  of  the  way 
of  the  bad  odor!     Withdraw  from  the  idolatry  of 
the    superfluous!     Withdraw    from    the    steam    of 


DEVELOPING    THE   THEORY  20$ 

these  human  sacrifices !  Open  still  remaineth  the 
earth  for  great  souls.  Empty  are  still  many  sites 
for  lone  ones  and  twain  ones,  around  which  tloatcth 
the  odor  of  tranquil  seas.  Open  still  remaineth  a 
free  life  for  great  souls.  Verily,  he  who  possesseth 
little  is  so  much  the  less  possessed :  blessed  be  mod- 
erate poverty !  There,  where  the  state  ceaseth  — 
there  only  commenceth  the  man  that  is  not  super- 
fluous: there  commenceth  the  song  of  the  necessary 
ones,  the  single  and  irreplaceable  melody.  There, 
where  the  State  ccasctli  —  pray  look  thither,  my 
brethren !  Do  ye  not  see  it,  the  rainbow  and  the 
bridges  of  the  Superman  ?  —  Thus  spake  Zara- 
thustra." 

To  resume,  when  plebcianism  has  carried  the  day 
it  destroys  the  State  without  replacing  it  and  is 
utterly  unable  to  replace  it.  It  has  conquered  power 
but  is  unable  to  exercise  it.  It  has  secured  domina- 
tion for  itself,  for  a  mere  nothing.  In  the  name  of 
morality  it  has  conquered  the  empire  for  negation. 
The  ascent  of  plel)cianism  is  the  rising  tide  of  nullity 
and  morality,  which  was  its  ascensional  force,  is  a 
negative  and  nihilizing  virtue. — Morality  is  the 
"  will  to  power  "  of  the  powerless. 


CHAPTER  X. 

DISTANT  PERSPECTIVES  OF  THE 
DOCTRINE. 

If  this  be  the  case,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should 
use  all  possible  means  to  destroy,  abolish  and  anni- 
hilate morality.  To  deliver  man  to  all  his  passions, 
and  to  urge  him  to  abandon  himself  to  them.  .  .  . 
Here  you  have  the  conclusion  and  the  solution. — 
Not  at  all,  Nietzsche  answers,  after  having  thought 
it  over,  not  at  all.  What  results  from  what  we  have 
seen  is  not  that  morality  is  deadly  to  men,  it  is  that 
morality  is  deadly  to  the  smaller  number  of  men, 
and  deadly  to  society,  which  in  order  to  subsist, 
must  be  ruled  by  these  men;  and  it  is  deadly  to 
humanity,  which  should  be  led  by  those  men  if  it  is 
to  avoid  becoming  mere  dust  or  mire.  But  it  is  far 
from  being  deadly  to  the  great  number;  for  the 
inferior  kind,  to  the  masses;  it  is  their  very  life. 
It  is  the  conception  of  life,  the  rule  of  life  and  the 
ideal  of  life  to  which  these  masses  may  rise,  and 
which  they  need  ;  for  it  is  natural  to  them :  "  What 
is  allowed  only  to  the  strongest  and  most  fecund 
natures  in  order  that  their  existence  be  possible  — 
leisure,  adventures,  incredulousness  and  even  de- 
bauches, that,  if  it  were  allowed  to  the  average 
natures,  would  necessarily  cause  them  to  perish," 

206 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF  THE   DOCTRINE        207 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  is  what  takes  place. 
"  Activity,  rules,  moderation,  '  convictions '  are 
seemly  in  a  word  as  virtues  for  the  herd.  With 
their  help,  that  kind  of  men,  the  average  men,  will 
reach  the  form  of  perfection  which  is  proper  to 
them." 

What  is  needed  then  is  to  maintain  morality  for 
those  that  need  it  and  not  to  subject  to  it  those 
to  whom  it  is  not  necessary,  and  to  whom  it  is  harm- 
ful and  deadly,  just  as  we  maintain  water  for  the 
fish  without  compelling  the  birds  to  live  in  it.  "  A 
doctrine  and  a  religion  of '  love,'  ( fetters  to  the  affir- 
mation of  the  self),  a  religion  of  patience,  resigna- 
tion, mutual  help  in  deed  and  words,  might  be  of  a 
superior  lalue  in  those  strata,  even  in  the  eyes  of 
those  that  dominate.  For  they  repress  the  feelings 
of  rivalry,  resentment  and  envy,  which  are  proper  to 
ill-gifted  beings.  They  divinize  for  them  under  the 
name  of  ideal,  of  humility  and  obedience,  the  state 
of  slavery,  inferiority  and  oppression.  This  ex- 
plains why  the  dominating  classes  (or  races),  as 
well  as  the  individuals,  have  always  preserved  the 
cult  of  altruism,  the  gospel  of  the  meek  and  lowly 
and  the  God  on  the  Cross." 

Let  the  men  of  the  inferior  kind  retain  morality. 
After  all,  they  are  those  who  invented  it.  They  in- 
vented it  according  to  their  nature  and  their  needs. 
There  is  nothing  to  say  about  it.  Their  only  error 
consists  in  wanting  to  submit  to  it  those  for  whom 
it  was  not  made  and  whom  it  annihilates,  to  the 
great  cost  of  society  and  mankind.  What  is  wrong 
with  the  fish  is  not  that  they  want  to  live  in  the 


208  ON"   READING    NIETZSCHE 

water:  the  wrong  would  come  if  the  fish  wished 
to  compel  the  eagles,  those  conquerors,  and  the 
nightingales,  those  artists,  to  live  thereunder.  You 
have  the  saying  of  Napoleon,  a  perfectly  just  one: 
"  that  you  should  listen  to  the  voice  of  sentiment 
and  pity,  that  is  your  business  and  it  is  very  good  on 
your  part ;  but  to  me,  Monsieur  de  Metternich,  what 
does  it  matter  that  a  hundred  thousand  men  live  or 
perish." 

It  is  established  that  humanity,  the  mass  of  hu- 
manity, cannot  live  without  morality,  perhaps  even 
not  without  a  religion,  religion  being  the  develop- 
ment, the  derivation  and  also  the  support  of  that 
morality.  It  is  proved  also  that  the  elite  of  hu- 
manity cannot  live,  and  also  cannot  lead  humanity 
along  the  path  of  greatness  and  beauty  unless  it  is 
freed  from  that  morality.  Let  us  conclude  that 
humanity  needs  a  morality  and  that  there  must  be 
none  for  the  elite.  The  words  so  often  jeered  at: 
"  there  must  be  a  religion  for  the  people  "  are  not 
in  the  least  grotesque.  They  are  the  confirmation 
of  a  fact.  What  was  ridiculous  was  the  words  of 
the  hair-dresser  to  Diderot :  "  even  though  I  may 
be  nothing  but  a  surgeon's  helper  you  should  not 
think  that  I  have  any  religion." 

But  we  are  reaching  two  "  moralities,"  or  if  you 
like,  two  rules  of  life,  which  is  much  the  same 
thing,  one  morality  for  the  small  men  and  one 
morality  for  the  great  ones ;  because  the  absence  of 
morality  for  the  great  ones  must,  of  all  necessity,  be 
more  than  merely  a  negation.  It  will  need  to  pre- 
cise  itself,  to   discipline   and   organize   itself,   and 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        209 

itself  to  become  a  morality  of  a  certain  kind,  a 
morality  differing  from  vulgar  morality,  a  morality 
even  contrary  to  vulgar  morality,  an  immoralistic 
morality,  but  yet  a  rule  of  life,  and  that  is  to  say  a 
morality,  and  here  we  have  therefore  the  two 
moralities. 

Well,  precisely,  Nietzsche  answers,  the  error 
lay  in  wanting  morality  to  be  "  the  universal  moral- 
ity "  as  the  ancient  courses  of  philosophy  taught. 
Morality  cannot  be  universal.  It  could  only  be  so 
if  all  men  had  the  same  nature,  and  you  know  very 
well  that  such  is  not  the  case.  It  is  the  notion,  still 
groping,  of  equality  that  inspired  the  old  philoso- 
phers with  this  idea  of  universal  and  uniform  mo- 
rality. Holding  in  a  vague  way  the  prejudice  that 
men  were  equal  and  of  a  same  nature,  they  formed 
the  notion  that  the  same  rule  of  life  should  be  ap- 
plied to  them,  and  was  inscribed,  as  it  were,  in  all 
their  hearts.  But  this  is  an  error  upon  an  error. 
Men  are  not  equal;  they  are  not  uniform,  they  are 
neither  cast  in  the  same  mold,  nor  animated  with  the 
same  spirit ;  there  are  great  ones  and  small  ones ; 
there  are  some  that  are  capable  of  one  rule  of  life, 
and  there  are  others  that  are  capable  of  another  rule 
of  life  for  which  the  first  ones  are  not  fit.  The 
unbearable  impertinence  of  those  that  are  cast  in 
the  little  molds  consists  in  wanting  to  force  into 
them  those  that  are  too  big  to  dwell  therein,  and 
exactly  the  same  thing  happens  in  morality  as  in 
politics,  and  the  foolishness  of  equality  and  the 
foolishness  of  universal  morality  are  one  and  the 
same  foolishness. 


2IO  ON  READING   NIETZSCHE 

In  other  words,  if  you  prefer,  I  admit  morality, 
I  even  respect  it,  but  I  give  it  its  own  portion.  I 
want  it  to  reign  and  act  where  it  is  very  good  in  its 
own  place,  and  upon  those  that  are  made  for  it,  since 
they  made  it.  But  I  stop  it  where  its  dominion  ends 
and  at  the  boundary  beyond  which  it  becomes  use- 
less and  soon  detrimental.  I  want  it  to  have,  like 
many  other  things,  its  department,  but  not  every- 
thing for  its  own  share,  as  it  pretends  to  have. 

Strange  pretension.  Can  you  imagine  art  pre- 
tending that  everything  is  made  for  art,  that  all 
human  things  must  be  subordinated  to  art,  that  all 
the  branches  of  human  knowledge  must  be  com- 
pelled to  tend  towards  art  as  the  ultimate  end,  and 
that  all  men  should  be  artists  ? 

Can  you  imagine  science  —  and  if  that  happens 
sometimes  it  is  a  ridiculous  indiscretion  —  pre- 
tending that  everything  has  been  made  for  science, 
that  everything  must  be  regulated  by  science,  that 
everything  must  lead  to  it  as  towards  a  unique  aim, 
that  it  is  obligatory,  and  that  all  men  must  be  men 
of  science? 

Morality  is  one  of  the  branches  of  human  knowl- 
edge, good  in  its  own  sphere,  as  the  others  are,  but 
evil  when  beyond  its  own  purpose.  It  is  the  knowl- 
edge that  mediocre  men  have  of  their  needs  and 
their  desires.  Let  it  then  be  used  by  the  mediocre 
men,  but  it  must  leave  the  others  alone.  Morahty 
alone  has  the  pretension  to  be  universal,  to  be  oblig- 
atory for  all  men  and  to  bend  all  men  under  its  laws. 
It  is  that  pretension  only  which  I  condemn  and 
reject.     Morality  in  its  own  home ! 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES    OF   THE    DOCTRINE        211 

You  may  say :  "  but  those  whom  you  are  freeing 
from  morahty  will  necessarily  establish  a  morality 
for  themselves,  a  rule  of  life  for  themselves,  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  to  agree  among  themselves, 
to  organize  and  discipline  themselves,  to  know  what 
they  want,  and  where  they  tend,  and  to  recognize 
and  communicate  with  each  other  concerning  the 
means  to  reach  their  aim,  since  you  are  giving  them 
one,  that  is  to  say,  the  strength,  the  greatness  and 
the  beauty  of  mankind.  And  there  you  are  in  the 
presence  of  two  moralities,  that  of  the  small  and  that 
of  the  great  ones."  I  accept  quite  willingly  this 
conclusion,  or  rather  merely  this  fashion  of  putting 
things.  Yes,  in  my  idea,  there  is  a  morality  for 
the  small  ones  and  there  is  something  for  the  great 
ones,  which  is  very  immoral  but  which  you  may  call 
morality  if  you  like.  For  the  mediocre  ones  — 
traditional  morality,  which  I  need  no  longer  define 
or  describe  since  it  is  what  I  have  been  doing  all 
along,  while  attacking  it.  For  the  men  of  the  su- 
perior kind  —  a  particular  morality,  which  I  shall 
make  no  bones  about  describing  in  its  main  lines. 
Here  is  the  morality  of  the  superior  ones  and  the 
morality  of  the  mediocre  ones  opposed  to  each 
other :  the  morality  of  the  masters  and  the  morality 
of  the  slaves. 

"  In  a  tour  through  the  many  finer  and  coarser 
moralities,  which  have  hitherto  prevailed  or  still 
prevail  on  the  earth,  I  found  certain  traits  recurring 
regularly  together,  and  connected  with  one  another, 
until  finally  two  primary  types  revealed  themselves 
to  me,  and  a  radical  distinction  was  brought  to  light. 


212  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

There  is  master-morality  and  slave-morality;  I 
would  at  once  add,  however,  that  in  all  higher  and 
mixed  civilizations,  there  are  also  attempts  at  the 
reconciliation  of  the  two  moralities;  but  one  finds, 
still  oftener,  the  confusion  and  mutual  misunder- 
standing of  them,  indeed,  sometimes  their  close 
juxtaposition  —  even  in  the  same  man,  within  one 
soul.  The  distinctions  of  moral  values  have  either 
originated  in  a  ruling  caste,  pleasantly  conscious  of 
being  different  from  the  ruled  —  or  among  the  ruled 
class,  the  slaves  and  dependents  of  all  sorts.  In  the 
first  case,  when  it  is  the  rulers  that  determine  the 
conception  '  good,'  it  is  the  exalted,  proud  disposi- 
tion which  is  regarded  as  the  distinguishing  feature, 
and  that  which  determines  the  order  of  rank.  The 
noble  type  of  man  separates  from  himself  the  beings 
in  whom  the  opposite  of  this  exalted,  proud  disposi- 
tion displays  itself  :  he  despises  them.  Let  it  at  once 
be  noted  that,  in  this  first  kind  of  morality,  the  an- 
tithesis '  good  '  and  '  bad  '  means  practically  the  same 
as  *  noble  '  and  *  despicable  ' ;  —  the  antithesis 
'  good  '  and  '  evil '  is  of  a  different  origin.  The 
cowardly,  the  timid,  the  insignificant,  and  those 
thinking  merely  of  narrow  utility  are  despised; 
moreover,  also,  the  distrustful,  with  their  con- 
strained glances,  the  self-abasing,  the  dog-like  kind 
of  men  who  let  themselves  be  abused,  the  mendicant 
flatterers,  and  above  all  the  liars :  —  it  is  a  funda- 
mental belief  of  all  aristocrats  that  the  common 
people  are  untruthful.  '  We  truthful  ones '  the 
nobility  in  ancient  Greece  called  themselves.  It  is 
obvious  that  everywhere  the  designations  of  moral 


DISTANT   PERSPECTIVES   OF  THE  DOCTRINE        2I3 

value  were  at  first  applied  to  men,  and  were  only 
derivatively  and  at  a  later  period  applied  to  actions; 
it  is  a  gross  mistake,  therefore,  when  historians  of 
morals  start  with  questions  like,  *  Why  have  sym- 
pathetic actions  been  praised?'  The  noble  type  of 
man  regards  himself  as  a  determiner  of  values ;  he 
does  not  require  to  be  approved  of ;  he  passes  the 
judgment:  '  What  is  injurious  to  me  is  injurious  in 
itself  ';  he  knows  that  it  is  he  himself  only  who  con- 
fers honor  on  things ;  he  is  a  creator  of  values. 
He  honors  whatever  he  recognizes  in  himself :  such 
morality  is  self-glorification.  In  the  foreground 
there  is  the  feeling  of  plenitude,  of  power,  which 
seeks  to  overflow,  the  happiness  of  high  tension,  the 
consciousness  of  a  wealth  that  would  fain  give 
and  bestow :  —  the  noble  man  also  helps  the  un- 
fortunate, but  not  —  or  scarcely  —  out  of  pity,  but 
rather  from  an  impulse  generated  by  the  super- 
abundance of  power.  The  noble  man  honors  in 
himself  the  powerful  one,  him  also  who  has  power 
over  himself,  who  knows  how  to  speak  and  how  to 
keep  silence,  who  takes  pleasure  in  subjecting  himself 
to  severity  and  hardness,  and  has  reverence  for  all 
—  that  is  severe  and  hard.  *  Wotan  placed  a  hard 
heart  in  my  breast,*  says  an  old  Scandmavian 
Saga:  ^  it  is  thus  rightly  expressed  from  the  soul  of 
a  proud  Viking.  Such  a  type  of  man  is  even  proud 
of  not  being  made  for  sympathy ;  the  hero  of  the 
Saga,  therefore,  adds  warningly :  *  He  that  has  not 
a  hard  heart  when  young,  will  never  have  one.'    The 

1 "  When  God  made  the  heart  and  the  bowels  of  men, 
he  put  therein  first  of  all  Goodness. — (Boss.) 


214  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

noble  and  brave  who  think  thus  are  the  furthest 
removed  from  the  morahty  that  sees  precisely  in 
sympathy,  or  in  acting  for  the  good  of  others,  or  in 
desinteressement,^  the  characteristic  of  the  moral: 
faith  in  oneself,  pride  in  oneself,  a  radical  enmity 
and  irony  towards  '  selflessness,'  belong  as  definitely 
to  noble  morality,  as  do  a  careless  scorn  and  precau- 
tion in  presence  of  sympathy  and  the  *  warm  heart.* 
It  is  the  powerful  that  knoiv  how  to  honor,  it 
is  their  art,  their  domain  for  invention.  The  pro- 
found reverence  for  age  and  for  tradition  —  all  law 
rests  on  this  double  reverence, —  the  belief  and 
prejudice  in  favor  of  ancestors  and  unfavorable  to 
newcomers,  is  typical  in  the  morality  of  the  power- 
ful; and  if,  reversely,  men  of  '  modern  ideas  '  believe 
almost  instinctively  in  '  progress  '  and  the  '  future,' 
and  are  more  and  more  lacking  in  respect  for  old 
age,  the  ignoble  origin  of  these  '  ideas '  has  com- 
placently betrayed  itself  thereby.  A  morality  of 
the  ruling  class,  however,  is  more  especially  foreign 
and  irritating  to  present-day  taste  in  the  sternness 
of  its  principle  that  one  has  duties  only  to  one's 
equals ;  that  one  may  act  towards  beings  of  a  lower 
rank,  towards  all  that  is  foreign,  just  as  seems 
good  to  one,  or  *  as  the  heart  desires,'  and  in  any 
case,  '  beyond  good  and  evil ' ;  it  is  here  that  sym- 
pathy and  similar  sentiments  can  have  a  place.  The 
ability  and  obligation  to  exercise  prolonged  grati- 
tude and  prolonged  revenge  —  both  only  within  the 
circle  of  equals, —  artfulness  in  retaliation,  refine- 

1  In  French  in  Nietzsche's  text. 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        21$ 

ment  of  the  idea  in  friendship,  a  certain  necessity 
to  have  enemies  (as  outlets  for  the  emotions  of 
envy,  quarrelsomeness,  arrogance  —  in  fact,  in  or- 
der to  be  a  good  friend)  :  all  these  are  typical  char- 
acteristics of  the  noble  morality,  which,  as  was 
pointed  out,  is  not  the  morality  of  '  modern  ideas,' 
and  is  therefore  at  present  difficult  to  realize,  and 
also  to  unearth  and  disclose.  It  is  otherwise  with 
the  second  type  of  morality,  slave-morality.  Sup- 
posing that  the  abused,  the  oppressed,  the  suffering, 
the  unemancipated,  the  weary,  and  those  uncertain 
of  themselves,  should  moralize,  what  will  be  the 
common  element  in  their  moral  estimates?  Prob- 
ably a  pessimistic  suspicion  with  regard  to  the  entire 
situation  of  man  will  find  expression,  perhaps  a 
condemnation  of  man,  together  with  his  situation. 
The  slave  has  an  unfavorable  eye  for  the  virtues 
of  the  powerful ;  he  has  a  scepticism  and  distrust,  a 
refinement  of  distrust  of  everything  *  good  '  that  is 
there  honored  —  he  would  fain  persuade  himself 
that  the  very  happiness  there  is  not  genuine.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  qualities  that  serve  to  alle- 
viate the  existence  of  sufferers  are  brought  into 
prominence  and  flooded  with  light ;  it  is  here  that 
syn^.pathy,  the  kind,  helping  hand,  the  warm  heart, 
patience,  diligence,  humility,  and  friendliness  at- 
tain to  honor;  for  here  these  are  the  most  useful 
qualities,  and  almost  the  only  means  of  supporting 
the  burden  of  existence.  Slave-morality  is  essen- 
tially the  morality  of  utility.  Here  is  the  seat  of  the 
origin  of  the  famous  antithesis  'good'  and  'evil': 


2l6  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

—  power  and  dangerousness  ^  are  assumed  to  reside 
in  the  evil,  a  certain  dreadfulness,  subtlety,  and 
strength,  which  do  not  admit  of  being  despised. 
According  to  slave-morality,  therefore,  the  '  evil ' 
man  arouses  fear;  according  to  master-morality,  it 
is  precisely  the  '  good  '  man  that  arouses  fear  and 
seeks  to  arouse  it,  while  the  bad  man  is  regarded  as 
the  despicable  being.  The  contrast  attains  its  maxi- 
mum when,  in  accordance  with  the  logical  conse- 
quences of  slave-morality,  a  shade  of  depreciation 

—  it  may  be  slight  and  well-intentioned  —  at  last 
attaches  itself  to  the  '  good '  man  of  this  morality ; 
because,  according  to  the  servile  mode  of  thought, 
the  good  man  must  in  any  case  be  the  safe  man :  he 
is  good-natured,  easily  deceived,  perhaps  a  little 
stupid,  iin  bonhomme.  Everywhere  that  slave-mo- 
rality gains  the  ascendancy,  language  shows  a  ten- 
dency to  approximate  the  significations  of  the  words 
'  good '  and  '  stupid.'  A  last  fundamental  differ- 
ence :  the  desire  for  freedom,  the  instinct  for  happi- 
ness and  the  refinements  of  the  feeling  of  liberty 
belong,  as  necessarily,  to  slave-morals  and  morality, 
as  artifice  and  enthusiasm  in  reverence  and  devotion 
are  the  regular  symptoms  of  an  aristocratic  mode 
of  thinking  and  estimating." 

There  stand,  according  to  Nietzsche,  the  two 
morals.  There  you  have  the  two  races  facing  each 
other,  each  with  its  own  rule  of  life.  Never  will 
they  understand  each  other.  They  will  always  look 
upon  each  other  with  the  deepest  astonishment,  be- 

1  Dominium,  dangier,  danger. 


DISTANT   PERSPECTI\i:S   OF  THE   DOCTRINE        217 

cause  not  only  are  their  actions  different,  but  the 
distant  motives  of  their  actions  belong  to  different 
spheres,  or  stand  on  different  geometrical  planes. 
We  have  here  two  worlds :  "  All  noble  and  gener- 
ous feelings  seem  improper  to  the  vulgar  natures, 
and  hence,  most  often,  unlikely."  They  wink  when- 
ever they  hear  of  those  feelings,  as  if  they  were 
saying  to  one  another :  "  there  should  be  a  good  lit- 
tle profit  in  this ;  people  cannot  see  through  all  the 
walls."  They  show  envy  towards  the  "  noble  "  man 
as  if  he  were  seeking  his  own  advantage  along  dubi- 
ous paths. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  cases  when  it  is  difficult  to 
find,  and  even  almost  impossible,  to  seek  an  inter- 
ested motive  to  a  noble  action.  Then  it  is  that  the 
man  below  finds  the  man  above  to  be  insane.  He 
looks  upon  that  man  with  awe,  fear  or  pity  accord- 
ing to  his  personal  character,  but  he  is  persuaded 
that  he  is  in  the  presence  of  a  man  that  has  lost  his 
head  and  that  is  not  in  his  senses.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  it  was  not  a  question  of  "  common  "  sense,  the 
only  thing  that  the  man  below  can  understand : 
"  if  they  are  convinced  with  too  much  sureness 
of  the  absence  of  selfish  intentions  and  personal 
tastes,  the  noble  man  becomes  a  sort  of  madman  to 
them.  They  despise  him  in  his  joy,  and  laugh  at 
his  radiant  eyes :  '  How  can  one  rejoice  at  the 
prejudice  caused  to  him?  How  can  one  accept  a 
disadvantage  with  open  eyes?  Nobility  of  senti- 
ments must  surely  be  complicated  with  a  sickness 
of  the  reason.'  They  thus  think,  and  cast  him  a 
despising  glance,   the   same   that   they   have   when 


2l8  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

they  see  the  pleasure  a  madman  takes  in  his  fixed 
idea.  ..." 

Note  that  they  are  right,  and  that  there  is  a  sort 
of  folly  in  the  greatness  of  the  soul.  Greatness  of 
soul  is  a  "  will  to  power,"  a  "  will  to  nobility,"  a 
"  will  to  elevation "  which  is  the  most  energetic 
form  of  egotism,  the  most  energetic  form  of  the  ex- 
altation of  the  ego.  But  it  destroys  egotism  in  the 
vulgar  sense  of  the  word ;  it  destroys  the  egotism  of 
preservation,  the  only  one  that  the  man  from  below 
understands  and  can  understand.  Consequently,  the 
superior  nature  is  "  the  more  un-reasonable  one 
when  compared  to  the  vulgar  nature,  because  the  no- 
ble and  generous  man,  the  man  that  sacrifices  him- 
self, sinks  in  fact  under  the  burden  of  his  instincts. 
His  reason  is  at  a  standstill  during  his  best  moments. 
An  animal,  which  protects  its  young  at  the  risk  of  its 
own  life,  or  one  which,  when  in  heat,  follows  the 
female  until  death,  is  not  thinking  of  the  danger 
of  death.  Its  reason  also  is  at  a  standstill,  since 
the  pleasure  given  it  by  the  sight  of  its  young  or  by 
the  female,  and  the  fear  of  being  deprived  thereof, 
altogether  dominate  it."  It  becomes  more  animal 
than  it  usually  is.  Thus  the  noble  and  generous 
man  feels  a  few  sensations  of  pleasure  or  pain  with 
so  much  intensity  that  the  intellect  must  needs  be- 
come silent  or  place  itself  at  the  service  of  those 
sensations.  *'  His  heart  will  then  overpower  his 
brain  and  the  word  of  passion  will  henceforth  ap- 
ply." ..."  It  is  the  un-reason  of  passion  in  the 
noble  and  generous  man  that  the  vulgar  despises." 
There  are  many  passions  that  the  man  below 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        219 

will  understand  and  condone ;  but  they  are  the  pas- 
sions that  pertain  to  vulgar  egotism,  to  conserva- 
tive egotism  and  that  are  mere  exaggerations, 
modifications  or  perversions  thereof.  Thus,  the 
man  below  will  "  no  doubt  be  irritated  by  the  pas- 
sions of  the  stomach,  but  he  understands,  neverthe- 
less, the  attraction  which  that  tyranny  exercises," 
and  he  excuses  it  or  smiles  at  it.  But  how  could  he 
understand  that  one  would  "  for  instance,  for  the 
sake  of  a  passion  for  knowledge,  endanger  one's 
health  and  one's  honor"?  There,  in  his  eyes,  be- 
gins folly.  To  the  men  below,  the  superior  men  are 
mere  maniacs. 

We  must  thoroughly  understand  this  if  we  wish 
to  remain  fair.  The  hatred  of  the  vulgar  men  for 
the  superior  men  is  not  made  up  altogether  of  jeal- 
ously, envy,  angry  spite,  humiliated  selfishness  and 
irritated  vanity.  All  these  elements  enter  into  the 
composition  of  that  hatred,  to  be  sure,  and  in  high 
doses.  But  there  is  something  else,  which,  if  not 
worthy  of  respect,  deserves  at  least  consideration ; 
there  is  the  stupor  of  the  normal  being  in  presence 
of  the  monstrous  being.^  And  vice  versa,  the  su- 
perior man  is  profoundly  unfair  to  the  man  below. 
The  superior  man  has  a  natural  taste  for  the  things 
which  as  a  rule  leave  men  quite  cold,  for  art,  sci- 
ence, beauty,  high  curiosity  or  high  virtue.  Com- 
pared to  the  mass,  the  superior  men  are  seekers  of 
exceptions,  seekers  of  the  rare :  "  The  taste  of  t\^e 
superior  natures   fixes   itself  upon  the  exceptions, 

^Mediocre  man:  normal  man.    Lombroso. 


220  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

Upon  things  that  seem  to  have  no  flavor."  In  short, 
"  the  superior  nature  has  a  way  of  appreciating 
which  is  its  own." 

As  the  masses  do  with  morahty,  the  superior  men 
want  to  turn  the  particular  rule  of  their  own  kind 
into  a  universal  rule  and  there  lies  their  unfairness : 
"  In  its  idiosyncrasy  of  taste,  the  superior  kind 
fancies,  as  a  rule,  that  it  has  no  peculiar  fashion  of 
appreciating  things.  On  the  contrary,  it  sets  its 
own  most  particular  values  and  non-values,  which 
are  altogether  its  own  peculiar  ones  —  it  sets  them 
up  as  universal  values,  and  falls  thereby  into  what 
is  incomprehensible  and  unrealizable.  It  is  very  sel- 
dom that  a  superior  nature  retains  enough  reason 
(or  flexibility  of  common  sense  and  comprehensive 
intelligence)  to  appreciate  and  treat  ordinary  men 
as  ordinary  men.  It  has,  as  a  rule,  faith  in  its  own 
passion,  as  if  that  passion  were  the  passion  which 
has  merely  remained  hidden  in  the  others.  In  that 
idea  the  superior  kind  shows  itself  full  of  ardor 
and  eloquence.  When  such  exceptional  men  fail 
to  consider  themselves  as  exceptional  men,  how 
could  they  ever  be  capable  of  understanding  the 
vulgar  natures  and  of  assessing  the  rule  in  an  equit- 
able fashion?  Thus  they  also  speak  of  the  folly, 
the  impropriety  and  the  fantastic  mind  of  humanity. 
They  also  are  full  of  astonishment  before  the  frenzy 
of  a  world  which  will  not  recognize  what  *  should 
be  for  it  the  only  necessary  thing.'  That  is  the 
eternal  folly  of  the  men  that  are  noble." 

Therefore,  we  must  leave  to  each  man  his  own 
way  of  feeling,  his  own  appreciation  of  values,  his 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE    DOCTRINE        221 

own  rule  of  life,  his  own  *'  morality."  No  one  must 
encroach,  or  wish  to  encroach  upon  others.  That 
were  a  vain  idea,  an  unrealizable  danger  and  a  use- 
less attempt.  Neither  of  the  two  parts  of  humanity 
must  try  to  convert  the  other,  neither  the  one  below 
that  which  is  above,  nor  the  one  above  that  which 
is  below.  Let  us  leave  to  the  people  its  morality  and 
let  us  have  our  own.  Which  one  is  that?  I  have 
said  it  a  hundred  times  but  let  us  be  still  more 
precise. 

The  superior  kind  must  needs  practice  that  supe- 
rior egotism  which  we  have  indicated  as  being  its 
nature,  the  basis  of  its  complexion,  its  aim  and  very 
mission.  It  must  be  hard  on  itself  and  on  the 
others,  but  especially  on  itself,  pitiless  to  itself  as 
to  others  but  much  more  pitiless  to  itself  than  to 
the  others.  ("  Be  hard,"  Zarathustra  is  always  tell- 
ing his  disciples.)  Be  solidaristic,  practice  the  firm- 
est concord  and  consider  yourselves  as  one  family, 
without  in  the  least  believing  that  you  are  related 
to  the  rest  of  mankind.  Honor  the  tradition  and 
the  past,  and  therefore  old  age.  Be  extremely  safe, 
cordial,  devoted  and  passionate  in  friendship ;  show 
contempt  for  love  and  all  sensuality,  without,  more- 
over, attaching  any  moral  value  to  chastity,  con- 
tempt in  general  for  all  that  is  personal  and  indi- 
vidual interest,  for  all  that  is  mere  enjoyment  of 
property,  and  that  fails  to  be  enjoyment  of  caste. 
Show  your  contempt,  for  instance,  for  domestic 
comfort  and  your  royal  passion  for  the  luxury  of 
hereditary  palaces,  senatorial  palaces,  for  temples 
and  museums.     Seek  ever  an  aim  that  is  in  great- 


222  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 


ness,  strength  in  extension,  beauty  in  realization  sur- 
passing its  own  power  and  exhausting  them,  since 
man  has  no  other  true  law  but  to  try  and  overcome 
himself.  Aspire  always  to  uplifting  the  human  kind 
in  its  own  collective  person.  Olympianize  man  in  a 
few  superhuman  samples,  thus  forming  a  formid- 
able, redoubtable  elite  which  will  lead,  and  roughly 
lead,  humanity,  after  having  imposed  upon  itself  by 
dint  of  science,  a  disciplined  will  and  the  very  aston- 
ishment that  will  must  needs  inspire.  Find  in  all 
this  work,  indefinitely  continued,  the  intense  delights 
of  true  egotism,  substituted  to  vulgar  and  apparent 
egotism,  the  acute  and  deep  delights  of  the  asser- 
tion, the  expansion,  the  extension  and  the  violent 
tension  of  the  self.  "  Ye  are  over-sparing,  ye  give 
way  too  much.  Of  that  is  the  soil  upon  which  ye 
grow  made  up.  But  for  a  tree  to  become  great, 
it  must  shoot  hardy  roots  around  hard  rocks.  .  .  , 
Alas,  why  are  ye  not  comprehending  my  words? 
Do  ye  always  what  ye  will;  but  first  of  all  do  ye 
know  hoiv  to  will;  be  ye  of  those  who  can  will. 
Always  love  your  neighbor  as  yourselves,  but  be  ye 
first  of  all  of  those  that  love  themselves ;  that  love 
their  own  selves  with  the  greatest  love  and  the 
greatest  contempt."  Thus  spake  Zarathustra,  the 
impious  one.  Note  this.  It  is  somewhat  surpris- 
ing at  first,  but  it  becomes  quite  natural  when  one 
thinks  it  over  for  a  while.  Christianity,  which  is 
a  slaves'  morality,  has,  nevertheless,  given  pre- 
cisely the  models  of  these  men  and  traced  their 
rules  of  life.  The  reason  is  a  very  simple  one. 
Christianity,  at  a  certain  time,  found  itself  to  have 


DISTANT   PERSPECTIVES  OF  THE  DOCTRINE       223 

become,  in  the  collective  person  of  its  Church,  an 
aristocracy  which  felt  the  need  to  become  and  to 
remain  a  superior  kind.  Thus,  like  the  directors  of 
Christianity,  the  superior  kind  will  be  wise  if  it  puts 
into  use  some  practices  of  an  ecclesiastical  char- 
acter, as,  for  instance,  asceticism,  fasting,  the  life  of 
the  cloister  and  festivities.  All  this  has  been  often 
corrupted,  altered,  deviated,  and  ill-understood  by 
Christianity.  But  at  bottom,  it  is  excellent:  "As- 
ceticism: one  has  hardly  yet  the  courage  to  put  its 
natural  usefulness  into  light,  its  indispensable  char- 
acter as  educator  of  the  zvill.  The  absurd  world 
of  our  educators,  which  has  at  present  in  mind  the 
notion  of  the  '  useful  servant  of  the  State,'  as  a 
regulating  scheme,  thinks  that  it  can  get  it  accom- 
plished merely  with  instruction  and  the  training  of 
the  brain.  It  does  not  even  grasp  the  notion  that 
there  is  something  else  which  is  far  more  important 
than  all  the  rest,  that  is  the  education  of  the  force 
of  the  will.^  Examinations  are  instituted  for  all 
matters,  with  the  exception  of  the  essential  one:  to 
know  whether  one  can  will,  whether  one  can  prom- 
ise. The  young  man  completes  his  education  with- 
out having  even  a  doubt  or  any  curiosity  touching 
the  superior  problems  of  his  nature."  Asceticism 
shall  be  one  of  the  practices  of  the  superior  kind, 

1  The  result  thereof  is  the  touching  political  docility  of 
the  otherwise  perfectly  able  minds  of  those  able  and  cul- 
tured Germans  who  are  satisfied  with  serving  the  earthly 
ends  of  their  leaders.  They  have  no  will  with  which  they 
could  resist  the  notion  of  the  State-Master  instead  of  the 
State-Servant  or  of  the  State-Enemy.— (Translator's 
Note.) 


224  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

provided  it  is  considered,  not  as  an  expiation  and 
a  punishment  exercised  against  one's  self,  but  as  an 
education,  a  training  of  the  will  to  power. 

"Fasting:  It  is  to  be  commended  from  ever)' 
point  of  view  and  also  (artistic  and  dilettantist  view 
points)  as  a  means  to  maintain  the  subtle  faculty 
for  enjoying  all  good  things ;  for  instance,  to  re- 
frain from  reading,  from  hearing  music,  from  being 
pleasant  to  others.  One  must  have  also  fasting 
days  for  one's  virtues."  The  fast  shall  be  practiced 
in  this  wide,  broadened  way,  in  this  ingenious  way, 
by  the  superior  kind,  if  it  wants  to  be  artistic  — 
and  that  it  must  needs  want  to  be.  The  Cloister 
Life,  if  well  understood,  is  temporary  but  never 
eternal,  for,  in  the  latter  case,  it  is  but  suicide ;  and 
even  suicide  were  better.  Again,  this  is  an  excellent 
thing  for  the  education  of  the  will  and  of  the  in- 
tellectual activity :  "  temporary  isolation,  by  refus- 
ing severely,  for  instance,  to  attend  to  one's  corre- 
spondence. It  is  a  sort  of  deep  meditation  and  of 
return  upon  one's  self  with  desires  to  avoid  not 
temptations  but  outside  influences.  A  voluntary 
exit  from  the  circle,  from  the  middle.  A  placing 
apart,  far  from  the  tyranny  of  the  excitations,  which 
condemns  us  to  spend  our  forces  in  reactions  only 
and  which  does  not  allow  the  latter  to  accumulate 
as  far  as  spontaneous  activity.  Take  a  close  look 
at  our  savants :  they  only  think  now  by  means  of 
reactives;  that  is  to  say,  they  must  need  read  first 
before  they  can  think." 

On  the  other  hand,  and  in  inverse  sense,  come 
the  Festivities :     "  In   feast,  one  must  understand 


DISTANT   PERSPECTIVES   OF  THE   DOCTRINE       22$ 

pride,  impetuousness  and  exuberance;  the  contempt 
of  every  kind  of  seriousness  and  bourgeois  spirit; 
a  divine  assertion  of  the  self  because  of  the  pleni- 
tude thereof  and  of  the  animal  perfection.  .  .  ,  The 
feast,  it  is  paganism  par  excellence."  Christianity 
had  partly  repulsed  it,  partly  accepted  and  partly 
suffered  it.  The  superior  kind  shall  turn  life,  by 
means  of  art,  into  an  eternal  feast ;  but  it  will 
practice  also  accidental  feast,  when  the  will  unbends 
and  does  after  all  but  assert  again  the  desire  for 
expansion,  heartiness  and  powerful  rapture  in  that 
broadening  and  that  joy. 

Thus  can  be  formed  a  race  of  superior  men  of 
whom  one  does  not  know  \\hat  may  come,  with  the 
help  of  heredity.  We  must  go  up  the  current  of 
plebeianism,  stem  the  tide  of  the  redoubtable  pam- 
beotia  of  which  Renan  spoke.  We  must  return  to 
the  Greco-Roman  antiquity;  but  beyond  that  an- 
tiquity itself,  by  the  same  means  it  only  used  out  of 
instinct,  but  utilizing  them  in  a  methodical  and  sci- 
entific way,  and  with  all  the  resources  afforded  us 
by  modern  science,  we  can,  and  it  is  even  our  duty, 
create  a  race  superior  not  only  to  present  day 
humanity  but  to  all  known  humanity,  an  unexpected 
and  unforeseen  race,  a  race  of  supermen,  ever  more 
or  less  dreamt  of  by  mankind,  sometimes  half- 
realized,  and  which  no  man  can  afhrm  to  be  unre- 
alizable. To  create  the  superhuman,  that  is  the 
present,  as  it  is  the  eternal,  duty  of  mankind. 

We  should  not  be  too  prompt  in  asserting  that 
we  are  precisely  turning  our  backs  to  this  ideal. 
That  there  is  an  appearance  of  tiiis  can  hardly  be 


22(i  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

contested.  The  materials  seem  to  be  lacking. 
Whatever  may  be  said  by  "  the  most  blustering, 
perhaps  the  most  honest,  at  least  the  most  short- 
sighted kind  of  men  that  exist  to-day,  that  is  to  say, 
Messieurs  the  Socialists,"  man  having  no  social 
value  unless  he  is  "  solid  "  and  a  "  stone  for  a  mighty 
building,"  the  actual  inferior  man  being  nothing  at 
all  and  the  actual  superior  man  being  most  of  the 
time  but  a  mere  comedian  —  it  really  seems  that 
"  what  shall  not  be  erected  henceforth,  is  a  society  in 
the  ancient  and  true  meaning  of  the  word."  It  does 
seem  that  "we  all,  are  no  longer  materials  for  a 
society." 

Nevertheless,  even  of  this  may  something  come 
out,  and  precisely  that  of  which  we  are  dreaming; 
not  as  good  comes  out  of  the  excess  of  evil,  for  there 
is  no  sense  whatsoever  in  that  notion,  but  as  reaction 
comes  out  of  action  and  especially  as,  in  the  whole 
domain  of  natural  history,  a  groping  but  deep  desire 
for  liberation  and  ascent  emerges  out  of  stagnation. 

To  begin  with,  we  must  well  realize  that  deca- 
dence, may  be,  of  course,  more  or  less  strong  and 
that  it  is  certainly  when  it  is  strong  that  it  is  called 
decadence,  but  that  it  is  eternal  in  itself  and 
also  necessary.  There  is  always  decadence,  even 
throughout  progress  itself,  and  decadence  is,  like 
progress,  a  form  and  a  condition  of  life :  "  Defec- 
tion, decomposition  and  waste  offer  nothing  that  is 
condemnable  in  itself.  They  are  but  the  necessary 
condition  of  life,  of  the  vital  increase.  The  phe- 
nomenon of  decadence  is  necessary  as  the  blowing 
and  the  progress  of  life :  we  lack  the  means  to  sup- 


DISTANT   PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        22/ 

press  that  phenomenon  and  even  should  we  possess 
it "  reason  would  insist  that  we  preserve  its  rights. 
It  is  shameful  to  have  all  the  theorists  of  socialism 
admit  that  there  may  be  circumstances  and  social 
combinations  where  vice,  sickness,  crime,  prostitu- 
tion and  misery  would  cease  to  be  developed.  That 
is  to  condemn  life.  No  society  is  free  to  remain 
young.  Even  at  the  moment  of  its  finest  develop- 
ment it  leaves  waste  and  detritus.  The  more  it 
progresses  in  audacity  and  energy,  the  more  it  be- 
comes rich  in  mistakes  and  deformities.  .  .  .  Not 
by  means  of  institutions  can  decay  be  suppressed, 
nor  vice  either. 

We  must  also  face  the  fact  that  we  are  always 
falling  in  an  error  or  rather  a  double  error  concern- 
ing degeneracy.  What  are  usually  held  to  cause 
degeneracy  are  but  the  consequences  thereof.  And 
what  we  consider  to  be  the  remedies  of  degeneracy 
are  but  palliatives,  and  powerless  ones  at  that.  De- 
cadence is  the  predominance  of  the  lower  species 
over  the  noble  species  and  of  the  morality  of  the 
lower  over  the  instincts  of  the  noble.  The  con- 
sequences are  "  vice,  vicious  character,  sickness, 
sickly  state,  crime,  criminality,  celibacy,  sterility, 
hysteria,  weakness  of  will,  alcoholism,  pessimism 
and  anarchism."  Now  meditation  is  no  remedy 
against  vice,  sickness,  crime,  et  cetera ;  it  is  preser- 
vation of  what  remains  valid  and  pure  in  humanity. 
"  The  whole  moral  struggle  against  vice,  luxury, 
crime  and  even  against  sickness  stands  as  a  naivete 
and  as  something  utterly  superfluous.  There  is  no 
matter  for  amendment  in  them.     Decadence  itself," 


228  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

to  take  it  as  a  whole,  "  is  not  something  that  we 
should  fight.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  and  proper 
to  each  period  and  to  each  century.  What  we  must 
fight  with  all  our  forces  is  the  importation  of  the 
contagion  into  the  sane  parts  of  the  organism." 

Therefore  we  should  not  despair  in  presence  of 
the  decadence  that  we  are  witnessing.  First  of 
all  that  decadence  is  a  normal  phenomenon.  Then 
if  we  do  not  rein  it  up  it  is  because  we  are  mistaken 
concerning  the  remedies  to  be  used,  and  it  is  pos- 
sible that  this  error  may  cease  to  be  indulged  in. 

Moreover,  in  the  midst  of  this  decadence,  among 
that  waste  and  detritus,  there  are  symptoms  of  a 
possible  return  to  the  normal  life  of  humanity,  to 
the  rough  and  rugged  life,  to  life  in  strength,  to  a 
life  guided  and  led  by  the  will  to  power.  Humani- 
tarian philosophers  bemoan  the  fact  that  the  19th 
century,  the  century  of  lights,  is  after  all  that  in 
which  more,  or  at  least  as  much,  as  in  any  other, 
the  doctrine  of  the  Right  of  Might  was  asserted  and 
exasperated.  No  doubt  this  might  be  evil;  for, 
without  the  instinct  of  greatness  and  beauty,  the  in- 
stinct of  force  itself  is  evil  in  this  that  it  is  incom- 
plete, that  it  does  not  produce  by  itself  a  great  civi- 
lization ;  nevertheless  it  is  not  such  a  bad  symptom. 
One  could  reasonably  draw  from  it  a  motive  for 
"  faith  in  the  civilization  of  Europe  " ;  perhaps  it 
is  our  duty  to  draw  it.  Think  of  this :  "  to  Na- 
poleon, and  not  at  all  to  the  French  Revolution 
which  was  seeking  fraternity  among  the  nations  and 
universal  flowery  effusions,  do  we  owe  that  we  are 
able  to-day  to  foresee  a  sequence  of  a  few  warlike 


DISTANT    PliRSPECTlVES    OF   THE    DOCTRINE        229 

centuries.  This  coming  period  will  not  have  its 
equal  in  history.  In  short,  we  owe  to  Napoleon  that 
we  have  entered  (re-entered)  the  classical  age  of 
warfare,  scientific  warfare,  and  at  the  same  time  of 
popular  warfare ;  war  on  a  large  scale  owing  to  the 
means,  the  talents  and  the  discipline  that  will  be  used 
in  that  end.  All  the  centuries  to  come  shall  look 
with  envy  and  respect  upon  this  age  of  perfection; 
because  the  movement  of  nations  of  which  this  war- 
like glory  is  but  the  repercussion  began  through  Na- 
poleon's effort,  and  could  not  have  come  but  for 
Napoleon.  It  is,  therefore,  to  Napoleon  that  the 
honor  shall  one  day  be  given  of  having  made  over  a 
world  in  which  the  man,  the  warrior,  shall  outweigh 
once  more  in  Europe  the  tradesman  and  the  Philis- 
tine, perhaps  even  women,  since  the  latter  has  been 
wheedled  by  Christianity  and  by  the  enthusiastic 
spirit  of  the  i8th  century  more  even  than  by  '  mod- 
em ideas.'  Napoleon,  who  saw  in  modern  ideas 
and  in  civilization  in  general  something  like  a  per- 
sonal enemy,  proved  by  his  hostility  that  he  was  one 
of  the  chief  continuers  of  the  Renaissance.  He  set 
up  again  a  whole  face  of  the  antique  world,  per- 
haps the  most  definite  of  them,  the  granite  face. 
Who  knows  if  thanks  to  the  latter  the  antique  hero- 
ism may  not  end  some  day  by  triumphing  over  the 
nationalist  movement,  if  that  heroism  may  not  make 
itself  necessarily  the  heir  and  continuer  of  Na- 
poleon —  of  Napoleon  who  wished,  as  we  know, 
Europe  united  so  that  she  could  become  mistress 
of  the  world  ^" 

Finally,   take   care   that   it   is  possible   that  the 


230  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

democratic  lowering  itself  may  be  both  a  condition 
and  a  cause  of  the  formation  of  a  noble  race  des- 
tined to  rule  in  the  future.  "  In  order  that  a  strong 
and  noble  race  be  established  it  is  necessary  that 
there  should  be  a  general  level  of  the  crowd,  of  the 
masses,  of  the  human  mob,  and  that  this  level  be 
very  low  (slaves  with  slaves'  instincts  in  the  antique 
nations).  That  is  precisely  the  levelling  which  is 
taking  place  in  present  day  Europe  by  means  of  a 
kind  of  '  dropping '  of  the  middle  classes  into  the 
plebe  proper  and  by  means  of  a  demoralization  of 
that  same  plebe  (alcoholism,  libertinism,  anarchism, 
etc.).  The  European  masses  make  slaves  of  them- 
selves ;  and  the  existence  of  a  large  slave  race,  slave 
in  essence,  and  by  its  own  proper  complexion,  is 
the  very  condition  of  the  birth  of  a  noble  race. 
The  progressive  diminution  of  man  is  precisely  the 
active  force  (this  is  not  the  proper  word ;  we  should 
read  *  movement '  or  *  evolution  '),  which  permits  us 
to  believe  in  the  culture  of  a  stronger  race,  a  race 
that  would  precisely  find  its  surplus  in  the  amount 
by  which  the  diminished  kind  would  become  weaker : 
will,  responsibility  and  the  faculty  to  set  an  aim  to 
one's  self." 

I  can  say  more  and  add  that  this  levelling  may  be 
the  very  cause  of  the  perhaps  near  creation  of  a 
superior  race.  The  elements  of  the  superior  race 
are  always  existing;  I  firmly  believe  it.  In  order 
that  they  may  release  and  disentangle  themselves, 
and  emerge,  it  is  necessary  that  the  plebeian 
levelHng  should  have  taken  place;  then  and  be- 
cause of  this  levelling  and  of  the  disgust  that  it 


DISTANT   PERSPECTIVES   OF  THE  DOCTRINE        23 1 

inspires  in  the  noble  elements  and  also  because  of 
the  necessity  that  imposes  itself  on  these  elements 
"  to  deepen  the  distance,  to  open  a  gulf  and  to  re- 
establish an  hierarchy  " —  it  is  because  of  all  this 
that  the  elements  of  the  noble  race  disentangle  and 
release  themselves,  and  that  they  emerge.  What  is 
taking  place  then  in  our  own  present  time,  through 
the  levelling  in  sordidness  which  others  may  term 
the  triumph  of  plebeianism  "  is  a  substruction " 
which  may  very  well  serve  for  the  building  up  of 
stronger  race.  Far  from  deploring  actual  plebeian- 
ism and  its  progressive  flattening,  it  is  reasonable 
enough  to  say  that  we  should  congratulate  ourselves 
upon  it  and  perhaps  even  accelerate  it.  "  The  level- 
ling of  the  European  man  is  the  great  processus 
which  could  not  be  delayed  :  we  should  speed  it  on  its 
way.  .  .  .  Even  the  only  aim  which  we  should  con- 
sider for  yet  a  long  time  to  come  is  the  diminution 
of  man ;  because  it  is  necessary  first  of  all  to  create 
a  broad  foundation  upon  which  the  race  of  the 
strong  men  can  be  erected." 

This  race  will  constitute  itself  at  a  given  time. 
It  will  isolate  itself  because  of  disgust.  It  will 
straighten  itself  up  by  means  of  the  natural  affinity 
among  its  elements.  It  will  organize  itself  out  of 
its  sheer  need  of  order  and  discipline  for  a  common 
action.  It  will  dominate  and  enslave  the  other  spe- 
cies by  the  one  well  known  phenomenon  of  the  pre- 
dominance of  quality  over  numbers,  and  by  the  very 
fact  that  the  other  kind  will  not  need  to  be  enslaved, 
since  it  has  enslaved  itself  by  giving  itself  the  tem- 
perament of  slaves.     As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  no 


232  ON   READING  NIETZSCHE 

Other  slave  but  the  man  that  enslaved  himself,  not 
the  man  that  has  been  eslaved,  the  man  that  prac- 
tices slavery  not  the  one  that  suffers  it. 

Thus  will  be  born  the  race  of  the  masters  whence 
may  come  out  the  race  of  the  supermen.  "  It  will 
not  be  merely  a  race  of  masters  whose  task  would 
simply  consist  in  ruling;  but  a  race  with  its  own 
vital  sphere,  with  a  surplus  of  strength  for  beauty, 
bravery,  culture  and  manners,  and  this  right  unto 
the  most  intellectual  domain.  It  will  be  an  as- 
sertive race  that  can  allow  itself  every  kind  of 
'grand  luxe':  a  race  strong  enough  not  to  need  an 
imperative  of  virtue,  rich  enough  to  be  able  to  do 
without  economy  and  pedantism,  finding  itself  be- 
yond good  and  evil,  a  hot-house  for  peculiar  and 
selected  plants.  .  .  ."  This  race.  Spartan  by  its 
will  and  its  endurance,  Athenian  by  its  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  Roman  by  its  grit  and  its  unlimited  will 
to  power,  shall  exist:  the  elements  thereof  exist 
now.  We  can  see  samples  of  them  at  every  turn, 
be  it  in  the  world  of  science  or  in  those  of  inven- 
tors, of  explorers,  or  of  artists.  The  democratic 
movement  delays  as  we  have  seen  but,  presently, 
will  hasten  its  hatching.  The  democratic  move- 
ment shall  find  its  "  justification "  in  that  birth, 
with  the  proof  that  it  can  serve  some  purpose. 
That  race  shall  exist,  if  it  be  true,  as  history  seems 
to  prove,  that  humanity  never  disorganizes  itself  un- 
less it  be  to  reorganize  itself  anew,  and  if  it  be  true 
that  plebeianism,  the  precise  form  of  social  dis- 
organization, can  but  foretell  new  conditions  and 
even  produce  a  new  reorganization. 


DISTANT   PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        233 

Having  reached  this  affirwation,  Nietzsche  per- 
ceived that  from  the  moment  when  he  affirmed 
something  he  was  perhaps  no  longer  the  immorahst 
he  had  fancied  himself  to  be,  nor  the  anarchist,  nor 
even  the  anti-religious  man  that  he  had  fancied 
himself  to  be.  He  perceived  that  perhaps  he  was 
but  like  others,  dreaming  a  morality,  a  sociology, 
and  even  a  theodicy,  but  of  course  a  special  morality, 
a  sociology  that  was  his  own,  and  an  original 
theodicy.  Somewhat  too  proud  to  admit  it,  he  set 
his  wits  to  the  placing  of  the  question  somewhat 
differently,  in  giving  the  thing  another  name  and  in 
admitting  that  he  was  a  moralist,  a  sociologist  and 
a  theologist  without  admitting  it.  He  did  not  wish 
to  say :  "  yes,  I  admit  it.  I  have  a  morality,  a 
sociology'  and  a  theodicy  in  my  fashion,"  so  he  said 
instead :  "  I  have  a  morality  beyond  morality,  a 
sociolog}'  beyond  sociology,  and  a  theodicy  beyond 
theodicy."  It  was  at  bottom  very  much  the  same 
thing  but  his  face  was  saved. 

It  is  certain  that  Nietzsche  was  seduced  by  his 
own  invention  of  the  beyonds  ^  and  that  he  wished  to 
make  thereof  a  whole  theory  that  would  crown  his 
work  by  embracing  and  harmonizing  it,  perhaps  by 
conciliating  the  contradictions  and  by  establishing  a 
connected  system.  Unfortunately  he  was  not  al- 
lowed time  for  adjusting  that  theory  which  would 
have  been  a  sort  of  method  of  conciliation  by 
"super-elevation,"  a  sort  of  method  of  conciliation 
by  the  sublime.     That  would  have  amounted  to  say- 

*  Jenseits. 


234  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

ing :  "  seen  from  very  far  above,  the  contraries  do 
not  conciliate  themselves  but  they  disappear,  or  if 
you  like,  they  conciliate  themselves  in  annihilation. 
Beyond  and  above  optimism  and  pessimism  there  is 
no  longer  any  optimism  or  pessimism;  .  .  ,  Beyond 
and  above  morality  and  immoralism  there  is  no 
longer  any  morality  nor  immorality;  these  names 
disappear  .  .  ."    And  so  on. 

There  was  Nietzsche's  last  thought,  his  supreme 
dream,  not  that  chronologically  speaking  he  had 
it  after  the  others,  for  it  seems  that  he  was  pre- 
occupied very  early  by  it  and  that  the  thing  was,  as 
it  were,  one  of  the  bends  of  his  mind;  but  I  mean 
that  it  was  what  he  had  already  reserved  himself 
to  establish  and  systematically  to  expose  in  order 
to  end  and  close  his  work. 

This  remained  confused,  merely  sketched  here 
and  there,  and  I  can  but  give  its  wavering  lines  such 
as  they  may  be  found  scattered  throughout  the 
various  works  of  our  author. 

For  instance,  examining  two  categories  of  "  ne- 
gators of  morality "  Nietzsche  says  this:  "there 
are  two  kinds  of  negators  of  morality.  To  deny 
morality  may  mean  (i)  to  deny  that  the  ethical 
motives  that  men  give  as  pretexts  do  really 
prompt  their  actions.  It  is  as  if  one  were  saying 
that  morality  is  a  matter  of  words  and  is  part  of 
those  coarse  or  subtle  impositions  (more  often  im- 
position upon  himself)  which  are  proper  to  man 
especially  perhaps  to  men  who  are  famous  for 
their  virtues.  (2)  to  deny  morality  may  also 
mean  to  deny  that  moral  decisions  rest  upon  truths. 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        235 

In  that  case,  one  grants  that  these  judgments  are 
truly  the  motives  of  the  actions ;  but  that  they  are 
errors,  bases  of  all  moral  decisions  which  lead  men 
to  moral  actions.  This  last  point  of  view  is  my 
own.  Yet  I  do  not  deny  that,  in  many  cases,  a 
subtle  mistnist  in  the  way  of  the  former,  that 
is  to  say  in  the  spirit  of  La  Rochefoucauld,  is  war- 
ranted and  of  a  high  general  usefulness.  But  1 
deny  morality  as  I  deny  alchemy ;  and  if  I  deny  the 
hypothesis,  yet  I  do  not  deny  that  there  were  al- 
chemists that  did  believe  in  those  hypotheses,  and 
based  themselves  upon  them.  In  the  same  way  do 
I  deny  immorality ;  not  that  I  deny  the  e.xistence 
of  an  infinity  of  men  who  feel  themselves  immoral 
but  I  deny  that  there  is  in  truth  a  reason  for  them 
to  feel  this.  I  do  not  deny,  as  it  goes  without 
saying  if  one  admits  that  I  am  not  a  madman, 
that  one  should  avoid  and  resist  many  actions  which 
are  said  to  be  immoral,  and  also  that  we  should  exe- 
cute and  encourage  many  of  those  that  are  said 
to  be  moral ;  but  I  believe  that  the  one  and  the 
other  actions  must  be  done  for  reasont  different 
from  those  so  far  accepted.  It  is  necessary  that  -we 
should  change  our  way  of  seeing  in  order  to  arrive 
at  last  perhaps  very  late  to  change  our  zvay  of 
feeling." —  to  change  our  way  of  seeing  and  then 
our  way  of  feeling.  For  instance,  there  are  three 
degrees  in  the  action  called  heroic  or  simply  gener- 
ous:  (i)  impulsion:  to  throw  one's  self  in  the 
water,  without  the  slightest  reflection,  to  save  some 
one:  (2)  decision  accompanied  by  extreme  pleas- 
ure: to  do  the  same  thing  very  deliberately,  after 


236  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

deliberation  and  consideration  of  the  subject;  but  to 
do  it  out  of  will,  with  a  heroic  joy,  coming  from  the 
consciousness  that  one  has  of  this  sovereign  will. 
(3)  Decision  unaccompanied  by  pleasure:  to  do  the 
same  thing  after  deliberation  and  consideration  of 
the  danger,  and  to  do  it  out  of  will,  but  without 
feeling  a  pleasure  which  is,  at  the  same  time,  also 
impulsion  and  reward.  This  third  degree  is  the 
highest.  It  is  the  one  that  we  must  reach ;  is  what 
we  call  changing  our  way  of  seeing  and  even  our 
way  of  feeling. 

"  One  gives  way  to  a  generous  feeling,  placing 
one's  life  in  danger,  under  a  momentary  impulsion. 
That  is  of  little  value,  and  does  not  even  represent  a 
characteristic  action.  In  their  capacity  for  thus 
acting,  all  men  are  equal,  and,  as  to  the  decision 
which  is  necessary  thereto,  the  criminal,  the  bandit, 
the  Corsican,  certainly  surpass  an  honest  man.  The 
superior  degree  would  be  reached  if  one  could  over- 
power that  impulse  within  one's  self  not  to  execute 
the  heroic  deed  as  a  sequel  to  impulsions,  but  coldly, 
in  a  reasonable  fashion,  without  there  being  a  tem- 
pestuous overflowing  of  feelings  of  pleasure.  It  is 
likewise  the  case  with  compassion:  it  should  be 
habitually  passed  first  of  all  through  the  sieve  of 
reason.  Otherwise  it  would  be  as  dangerous  as 
any  other  sentiment.  The  blind  obedience  to  a 
passion,  be  the  latter  generous  or  commiserating 
or  hostile,  that  matters  little  —  that  is  always  the 
cause  of  the  greatest  calamities.  Greatness  of 
character  does  not  consist  in  not  having  those  pas- 
sions ;  on  the  contrary  one  should  possess  them  in 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES    OF   THE    IXKTRIXE        2^ 

the  highest  degree.  It  consists  in  holding  them  on 
leash  —  and  again  this  witliout  such  a  constraint 
causing  even  a  particle  of  joy,  but  simply.  .  .  .  We 
must  dominate  the  passions  and  not  weaken  or  ex- 
tirpate them.  And  the  greater  the  mastery  of  the 
will  the  more  freedom  one  may  grant  to  the  pas- 
sions." 

In  other  words,  Nietzsche  simply  tends  toward 
a  morality,  and  it  seems  to  me,  a  perfectly  "  uni- 
versal "  one.  Only  it  is  a  new  morality,  a  new  as- 
sessment of  the  "  zahies,"  be  they  the  moral  values 
or  the  others.  These  should  be  even,  chronologi- 
cally, his  last  preoccupation. 

In  the  same  way  he  was  very  visibly  preoccu- 
pied, if  not  in  reconstructing  a  religion,  at  least  in 
re-establishing  God.  It  seems  to  mc  that  in  his  last 
works  Nietzsche  felt  that  he  had  only  wished  to  de- 
stroy God  because  of  morality,  that  he  had  destroyed 
but  the  moral  God,  and  consequently,  that  the 
non-moral  God  may  still  remain,  and  that  nothing 
is  opposed  to  his  existence.  He  says  again :  "  the 
world  is  not  at  all  an  organism ;  it  is  chaos  .  .  ." 
but  he  says  also:  "  do  we  suppress  the  idea  of  aim 
in  the  processus  and  do  we  nevertheless  affirm  the 
processus?  "  That  may  be.  "  Such  would  be  the 
case  if,  in  the  circle  of  that  processus  and  at  every 
moment  thereof,  something  were  reached, —  and  that 
always  the  same  thing.  Spinoza  conquered  an 
affirmative  position  of  this  kind,  in  this  sense,  that 
for  him,  every  moment  has  a  logical  necessity :  and 
he  triumphs  in  such  a  confirmation  of  the  world  by 
means  of  his  fundamental  logical  instinct."     Again 


238  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

Nietzsche  says  and  with  great  depth:  "because 
one  has  considered  conscience  as  measure,  as  supe- 
rior value  of  life,  instead  of  seeing  therein  an  in- 
strument and  a  particular  case  in  the  general  life, 
because  one  has  fallen  into  the  false  reasoning  of 
the  a  parte  ad  totum,  all  the  philosophers  instinc- 
tively seek  to  imagine  a  conscious  participation  in 
everything  that  happens,  a  spirit,  a  God.  But  they 
should  be  made  to  understand  that  it  is  precisely  in 
this  wise  that  the  existence  becomes  a  monstrosity; 
that  a  God  and  a  universal  sensibility  would  be 
something  that  should  cause  life  to  be  absolutely 
condemned.  We  have  eliminated  the  universal  con- 
science .  .  .  and  that  is  the  very  thing  which 
brought  us  a  great  relief.  As  it  is  we  are  no  longer 
compelled  to  be  pessimists.  The  greatest  reproach 
that  we  addressed  to  life  was  the  existence  of 
God."  This  was  clearly  atheistic,  but  Nietzsche 
said  also,  with  loyalty  and  finesse :  Yes,  but  "  after 
all  it  is  only  the  moral  God  that  has  been  over- 
come. Is  there  any  meaning  (or:  might  not  there 
be  a  meaning)  in  imagining  a  God  beyond  good  and 
evil?  Would  (or,  might  not)  a  pan-theism  di- 
rected towards  this  be  imaginable  ?  "  Elsewhere  he 
answers ;  "  yes,  yes,  that  would  be  imaginable  and 
it  would  have  a  meaning.  Let  us  discard  the 
greatest  beauty  of  the  idea  of  God.  It  is  un- 
worthy of  God.  Let  us  discard  also  the  highest 
wisdom.  It  is  the  vanity  of  the  philosophers,  upon 
whose  conscience  lay  the  folly  of  that  monster  of 
wisdom  who  would  be  God:  they  pretend  that 
God   resembles   them  as   much   as  possible.     No! 


DISTANT    PERSPECTIVES   OF   THE   DOCTRINE        239 

Cod,  the  highest  pozver,  that  is  enough.  Hence  re- 
sults everything  that  results :  the  World."  And 
there  are  no  more  theistic  words  nor  any  more  re- 
ligious ones  than  this  energetic  affirmation  of  the 
All  Mighty,  thrown  in  some  way  beyond  good  and 
evil,  beyond  goodness  and  wisdom,  beyond  all  the 
contingencies,  and  beyond  all  the  human  things 
that  piety,  and  also  the  vanity  and  short-sight  of 
humanity  have  perhaps  imprudently  mixed  in  the 
divine  essence. 

It  is  therefore  established  that  Nietzsche,  per- 
suaded that  man  is  a  being  that  must  overcome  him- 
self, has  often,  perhaps  always,  dreamt  of  himself, 
and  beyond  his  immoralism  and  his  atheism,  sought 
to  find  again  a  superior  morality  and  a  superior  the- 
ism and  perhaps  a  superior  religion. 

But  this  back-plan  of  his  conceptions  and  this 
thought  in  the  back  of  his  head  remained,  I  must 
repeat,  confused.  The  passages  of  his  works  in 
which  they  appear,  and  in  some  way,  insinuate  them- 
selves are  scarce  enough.  The  expression  which  he 
gives  them,  sometimes  luminous  enough  as  we  have 
seen,  is  more  often  hesitating  and  obscure.  We 
have  here  a  Nietzsche  who  zvould  hare  been,  if  "  the 
highest  power"  had  given  him  a  longer  life.  He 
did  not  come  into  being.  He  could  but  announce 
himself,  make  himself  foreseen,  and  foresee  him- 
self. A  general  judgment  upon  Nietzsche  must 
bear  upon  all  we  have  seen  of  him  without  taking 
any  further  notice  than  that  which  we  have  just 
given  it  of  this  last  phasis,  or  in  better  words,  of 
this  last  degree. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

DIGRESSION: 
LITERARY  IDEAS  OF  NIETZSCHE. 

Although  the  literary  and  artistic  ideas  of 
Nietzsche  do  not  always  bear  close  relation  to  his 
philosophy,  and  although  we  naturally  recorded 
where  they  were  in  their  place  those  among  his 
artistic  ideas  which  are  related  to  his  philosophy, 
and  even  stand  at  the  basis  of  it,  it  is  seemly  that 
•we  should  not  leave  the  philosopher  without  a 
glance  at  the  most  curious  of  his  innumerable, 
aesthetic,  free  and  independent  considerations,  which 
came  forth  according  to  the  day  and  the  hour. 
They  were  his  digressions.  This  also  will  be  a 
digression,  after  which  we  shall  come  back  to  the 
philosopher  to  cover  him  up  in  a  whole  gathering 
judgment. 

Let  us  recall  to  mind  that  Nietzsche  is  first  of  all 
a  classic,  an  Apollonian  and  a  Dionysian,  a  neo- 
Greek,  an  Hellenist  who  would  be  an  Hellene.  The 
influence  of  Goethe  must  have  been  strong  here, 
and  somewhat  also  that  of  Renan.  I  fancy  that, 
with  Goethe  and  Renan,  without  taking  Schopen- 
hauer much  into  account,  we  could  reconstruct  the 
whole  fundamental  Nietzsche.  Nevertheless,  one 
may  say  that  Nietzsche  is  neo-Greek  almost  from 

240 


digression:  literary  ideas  of  NIETZSCHE     241 

birth.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  was  that  as  much 
as  ever,  more  than  ever,  and  with  more  indiscreet 
fire,  than  at  any  other  period  of  his  hfe.  That  is 
his  very  foundation.  Hence  his  passion  for  Wag- 
ner's drama  in  which  he  thought  —  rightly,  1  be- 
lieve,—  that  he  had  again  found  the  Greek  tragedy. 
Hence  also  (without  taking  into  consideration  the 
private  reasons  with  which,  I  admit,  we  should 
reckon)  his  anger  later  against  this  same  drama  of 
Wagner  after  he  had  fancied  that  he  recognized  in 
it  the  sickly  and  unhealthy  autumn  flower  of  roman- 
ticism. 

Hence  his  passion  for  the  whole  French  literature 
of  the  17th  and  i8th  centuries  (we  should  add 
MontaigJie)  in  which  he  thought  he  saw,  and  that 
may  be  argued,  an  heir  of  the  Greeks  much  more 
than  of  the  Romans.  Hence  all  his  taste,  which 
goes  for  a  very  simple,  very  neat  and  very  clear 
forcefulness,  to  the  constant  union  of  simplicity  and 
strength.  It  is  true  that  the  artist  is  to  Nietzsche 
a  *'  sick  man  "  because  Nietzsche  always  loves  to 
give  first  of  all  an  exaggerated  and  paradoxical 
form  to  his  thought  in  order  to  secure  attention, 
even  if  he  has  to  readjust  his  thought  later;  but  a 
sick  man,  full  of  active  force  and  of  superanun"^ 
dance,  and  who  creates  and  gives  out  beauty  in  a 
precise,  just  and  sane  form.  The  artist  is  excep- 
tional and  lives  in  a  peculiar  state  that  may  be 
termed  the  malady  of  super-excitation :  "  The 
artist  is  created  by  exceptional  conditions,  by  all 
the  states  that  are  intimately  bound  to  the  phe- 
nomena of   sickness,  with   the   result  that  it  does 


242  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

not  seem  possible  for  one  to  be  an  artist  without 
being  a  sick  man.  These  physiological  states  be- 
come, in  the  artist,  almost  a  second  personality. 
They  are  (i)  intoxication:  the  increase  of  the  feel- 
ing of  power,  and  the  inner  necessity  to  make  of 
things  a  reflection  of  one's  plenitude  and  of  one's 
proper  perfection; —  (2)  the  extreme  acuteness  of 
certain  senses  ...  a  need  to  rid  one's  self  of  one's 
self  in  a  way  by  means  of  signs  and  attitudes,  an 
explosive  state.  We  must  imagine,  first  of  all,  this 
state  as  an  excessive  desire  that  prompts  us  to  rid 
ourselves  by  means  of  muscular  work  and  a  mobil- 
ity of  all  kinds,  of  this  exuberance  of  exterior  ten- 
sion; then  as  an  involuntary  co-ordination  of  that 
movement  with  the  inner  phenomena  (images, 
thoughts  or  desires); — (3)  the  forced  imitation; 
an  extreme  instability  that  compels  us  in  a  con- 
tagious way  to  communicate  a  given  image,  ...  an 
image  that  is  born  within,  and  acts  by  putting  the 
limbs  into  movement ;  a  sort  of  suspension  of  the 
will;  a  sort  of  blindness  and  deafness  towards 
everything  that  is  happening  outside."  This  par- 
ticular state  of  super-excitation  and  acting  power, 
a  fever  of  a  special  kind,  "  is  what  distinguishes  the 
artist  from  the  profane,  from  the  receptive  man. 
The  latter  reaches  the  culminating  points  of  his 
irritability  by  receiving;  the  artist  does  so  by  giving. 
The  result  is  that  an  antagonism  between  these  two 
predispositions  is  not  only  natural  but  even  desir- 
able. Each  of  these  two  states  possesses  an  optic 
which  is  contrary  to  the  other.  To  ask  that  an  art- 
ist exercise  himself  with  the  optic  of  the  spectator 


DIGRESSIOX  :    LITERARY    IDEAS   OF    NIETZSCHE        243 

or  the  critic  is  to  insist  that  he  should  weaken  his 
creative  power.  It  is  the  same  thing  as  the  differ- 
ence of  the  sexes.  We  must  not  ask  the  artist  who 
gives  to  feminise  himself,  that  is  to  receive.  To 
this  day  our  aesthetics  have  been  feminine,  in  this 
sense,  that  it  was  only  the  men  that  were  receptive 
to  art  that  formulated  their  experiences  touching 
what  was  beautiful  .  .  .  this  and  what  precedes  in- 
dicate a  necessary  error  because  the  artist  that 
would  begin  to  understand,  would  misunderstand. 
It  is  not  for  him  to  look  back,  not  for  him  to  look 
at  all.  His  but  to  give.  This  is  to  the  honor  of 
the  artist  that  he  is  incapable  of  criticism.  If  he 
were  capable  of  criticism  he  would  be  neither  fish 
nor  fowl ;  he  would  be  .  .  .  modern." 

Consequently  the  artist  is  as  impersonal  as  possi- 
ble. He  is  also,  and,  consequently,  as  personal  as 
possible.  Beyond  personal  art  and  impersonal  art 
there  lies  true  art.  The  artist  is  impersonal  in  his 
sense,  that  his  voluntary  personality  does  not  enter 
and  must  not  enter  into  his  work,  and  because,  as 
Nietzsche  admirably  put  it,  "  the  author  must  be 
silent  when  his  work  begins  to  speak."  He  is  per- 
sonal precisely  because,  if  his  voluntary  personality 
does  not  interv^ene,  his  sensible  personality,  his  tem- 
peramental personality  fills  his  work. 

Thus  gifted,  the  artist  shall  be  most  naturally  one 
and  simple,  very  much  one  and  very  simple.  Do  you 
know  what  the  mixed,  the  artificially  complex,  arts 
mean  and  what  they  reveal  ? 

They  reveal  the  impotence,  the  conscious,  or 
at  least  the   half-conscious,   impotence  of   the   ar- 


244  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

tist :  "  The  mixed  styles  in  the  arts  stand  as  wit- 
nesses of  the  mistrust  that  their  authors  felt  to- 
wards their  own  forces.  They  sought  allied  pow- 
ers, intercessors  and  cloaks  —  such  is  the  poet  that 
calls  philosophy  to  his  help,  the  musician  that  has 
recourse  to  drama  (that  was  for  Wagner)  and  the 
thinker  that  allies  himself  to  rhetoric  (that  was, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  very  much  for 
Nietzsche).  In  the  same  way,  the  overloaded  style 
in  art  is  a  sign  of  weakness,  or  of  a  weakening  either 
in  an  author,  or  in  a  school,  or  in  a  period,  or  in  a 
civilization.  A  simple  art  is  always  art  at  its 
apogee;  classical  art  is  always  simple:  "an  over- 
loaded style  in  art  is  the  consequence  of  an  impover- 
ishment of  the  organizing  power,  accompanied  by 
an  extreme  prodigality  in  the  intentions  and  the 
means.  At  the  beginnings  of  an  art,  one  finds  some- 
times precisely  the  extreme  opposite  to  this  fact." 

Effectively  classical  art,  the  art  of  beautiful  and 
simple  ordnance,  cannot  be  born  straight  out.  Art 
is  at  first,  it  seems,  nothing  but  an  exercise  of  the 
intelligence,  and  only,  little  by  little,  does  it  become 
one  of  the  sensibility,  then,  perhaps  later,  of  the  sen- 
sibility united  to  the  intelligence,  and  lastly,  of  the 
whole  being. 

We  might  venture  the  following  hypotheses  upon 
the  processes  of  the  aesthetic  sense :  "  if  one  thinks 
of  the  primitive  germs  of  the  artistic  sense,  and  if 
one  inquires  what  are  the  different  kinds  of  pleas- 
ure generated  by  the  first  manifestations  of  art,  as 
for  instance  among  the  savage  tribes,  we  find  first 
of  all  the  pleasure  of  understanding  what  another 


DIGRESSION  :    LITERARY    IDEAS   OF    NIETZSCHE        245 

ntan  zcisJies  to  say.  Art  is  here  a  sort  of  riddle, 
which  procures  to  the  man  that  finds  its  solution 
the  pleasure  of  establishing  the  quickness  and  nim- 
bleness  of  his  own  mind.  Then  one  remembers,  at 
the  sight  of  even  the  coarsest  work  of  art,  what  one 
knows  by  experience  to  have  been  a  pleasant  thing, 
and  one  rejoices,  for  instance,  when  the  artist  has 
indicated  haunting  memories  or  remembrances  of 
victories  or  of  nuptial  festivities  (intervention  of  the 
sensibility).  Again  one  may  feel  one's  self  moved, 
touched  and  inflamed  at  the  sight,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  glorifications,  of  vengeance  and  danger. 
Here  we  find  the  enjoyment  to  lie  in  the  agitation 
itself,  in  the  victory  over  weariness.  The  mem- 
ory of  an  unpleasant  thing,  if  it  is  overcome,  or  even 
if  it  makes  us  appear  ourselves  before  the  audience 
as  being  interesting  in  the  same  degree  as  an  art 
production  (as,  for  instance,  when  the  minstrel  de- 
scribes the  adventures  of  a  bold  sailor)  —  that  mem- 
ory may  provoke  a  great  pleasure,  which  is  then 
attributed  to  art." 

Of  a  more  subtle  kind  (intervention  of  the  intel- 
lect uniting  itself  to  the  sensibility)  is  the  joy  that 
is  born  from  the  sight  of  all  that  is  regular,  sym- 
Dietrical  in  the  lines,  the  points  or  the  rhythm.  Be- 
cause through  a  certain  similitude  one  awakens  the 
sentiment  of  all  that  is  orderly  and  regular  in  life, 
to  which  alone  is  due  every  manner  of  comfort,  we 
venerate  therefore  unconsciously  in  the  cult  of  sym- 
metry the  rule  and  the  fine  proportion  as  sources 
of  all  the  happiness  that  came  to  us.  This  joy  is 
a  manner  of  thanksgiving. 


246  ON  READING   NIETZSCHE 

"  It  is  only  when  we  have  derived  a  certain  sat- 
isfaction from  this  last  joy  that  there  is  born  yet  a 
more  subtle  sentiment,  that  of  an  enjoyment,  ob- 
tained from  the  breaking  of  what  is  symmetrical  and 
regulated:  if  this  sentiment  incites,  for  instance,  to 
seek  the  reason  in  an  apparent  unreason.  From 
which  there  appears  then  some  sort  of  an  aesthetic 
enigma.  This  is  a  superior  category  of  the  artistic 
joy  mentioned  in  the  first  instance.  (It  means  very 
likely  that  here  we  have  a  return  of  the  intelligence 
no  longer  uniting  itself  to  the  sensibility,  but  being 
pleasantly  contrary  to  it,  teasing  it.  The  game  is 
piquant  in  a  certain  measure,  but,  if  exaggerated,  it 
perverts  and  ruins  the  taste  in  the  same  way  as  the 
teasing,  become  wickedness,  is  no  longer  a  social 
charm  but  destroys  sociability.)  Those  that  may 
further  pursue  this  consideration  will  know  what 
kind  of  hypotheses  for  the  explanation  of  the  aesthe- 
tic phenomenon  one  renounces  here  out  of  princi- 
ple." 

This  last  line  contains  also  a  sort  of  "riddle" 
Vi^hich  I  give  up,  or  rather,  which  I  renounce  to  give 
the  explanation  which  I  fancy  thereof  —  not  being 
at  all  sure  of  it.  I  open  a  referendum  upon  this 
enigma.  I  shall  receive  with  gratitude  the  solutions 
that  my  readers  may  be  good  enough  to  communi- 
cate.^ 

Although  it  is  always  simple  and  always  one  in 
its  manifestation,  nevertheless  it  should  not  be  be- 

^The  late  Mr.  Faguet  being  now  in  a  position  to  under- 
stand all  riddles  propounded  by  Nietzsche,  his  translator 
makes  a  similar  appeal  on  his  own  behalf. 


digression:  literary  ideas  of  NIETZSCHE     247 

lieved  of  course  that  classical  art  is  always  the 
same,  and  that  there  is  but  one  classical  art.  There 
are  at  least  two  manners ;  they  are  very  different 
and  opposed  to  each  other ;  they  are  not  at  all  con- 
trary, but  they  are  opposed.  There  are  two  great 
kinds  of  classical  art.  "  There  is  that  of  the  great 
calm  and  that  of  the  great  movement."  (Doubt- 
less Virgil  and  Homer;  Goethe  and  Shakespeare.) 
And  these  two  kinds  are  legitimate  and  admirable. 
And  then  there  are  the  "  bastard  kinds  of  art."  Be- 
sides, and  beyond  the  art  of  the  great  movement, 
there  is  the  "  frantic  art."  Besides  and  beyond  the 
art  of  great  calm,  there  is  the  "  art  that  is  blase  and 
anxious  for  rest."  These  two  kinds  of  art  "  want 
their  weakness  to  be  taken  for  strength,  and  mis- 
taken for  the  true  kinds  of  art." 

It  is  with  the  art  that  is  blase  and  anxious  for 
rest  that  we  should  link  German  romanticism.  It 
is  rather  with  the  frantic  art  that  we  should  link 
French  romanticism.  French  romanticism  (except 
perhaps  some  portions  of  elegiac  art  due  to  Ger- 
man influence  and  to  the  influence  of  the  English 
novel,  and  prompted  especially  by  the  desire  to 
please  the  mob  which  sees  nothing  but  mawkishness 
in  art),  French  romanticism  was  an  affectation  of 
strength,  audacity,  movement,  frenzy  and  clashing 
noise.  It  was  the  frantic  art  by  excellence  —  and 
a  very  weak  art  at  bottom.  It  was  a  sort  of  ape- 
ing  of  the  first  Empire,  or  rather  it  was  a  stretching 
out  in  literature  of  the  imperial  activity.  The  Em- 
pire left  in  the  French  literature  not  its  strength 
but  the  trepidation  that  follows  a  sudden  stop. 


248  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

German  romanticism,  which  has  much  less  con- 
nection with  French  romanticism  than  has  been 
credited,  is,  properly  speaking,  the  art  that  is  blase 
and  anxious  for  rest  and  insipid  sweetness :  "  When 
the  Germans  began  to  prove  interesting  to  the  other 
peoples  of  Europe  —  that  was  not  so  long  ago  —  it 
was  due  to  a  culture  that  they  no  longer  possess 
today,  that  they  have  shaken  off  with  a  blind 
ardor,  as  if  it  had  been  a  disease;  and  yet  all  they 
could  find  to  put  in  its  stead  was  the  political  and 
national  folly.  It  is  true  that  they  have  succeeded 
thereby  in  becoming  even  more  *  interesting  '  for  the 
other  nations  than  they  were  before  on  account  of 
their  culture.  Let  that  satisfaction  be  left  to  them ! 
Nevertheless  it  is  undeniable  that  this  German  cul- 
ture has  imposed  upon  the  Europeans,  and  that  it 
was  neither  worthy  of  imitation  nor  of  the  interest 
that  followed  it  or  even  less  of  the  borrowing 
that  others  vied  among  themselves  to  make.  Let 
men  seek  information  today  about  Schiller,  Wil- 
helm  von  Humboldt,  Schleiermacher,  Hegel,  Schell- 
ing  and  the  others.  Let  them  read  the  corre- 
spondence of  those  men,  and  be  introduced,  as  it 
were,  to  the  large  circle  of  their  followers.  What 
is  it  that  they  have  in  common  ?  What  is  it  that,  in 
them,  impresses  us  men  of  today;  what  is  it  that 
makes  them  sometimes  unbearable  to  us,  and  some- 
times so  touching  and  pitiful?  On  the  one  hand,  it 
is  their  rage  to  appear  morally  moved  at  any  cost ; 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  their  desire  for  a  brilliant 
universality  without  consistency,  such  as  their  set 
intention  to  see  everything  in  a  beautiful  light, — 


DIGRESSION  :    LITERARY   IDE.\S  OF   NIETZSCHE       249 

characters,  passions,  periods  and  habits.  Unfortu- 
nately this  '  beautiful '  corresponded  to  a  vague 
bad  taste  which  boasted  nevertheless  of  an  al- 
leged Greek  origin.  It  was  a  sweet,  goody  idealism, 
with  silvery  reflections,  that  wanted,  above  all 
things,  to  strike  nobly  disguised  attitudes  and  ac- 
cents, something  as  pretentious  as  it  was  harmless, 
animated  by  a  cordial  aversion  to  '  cold  '  or  *  dry  ' 
reality,  and  especially  to  the  knowledge  of  nature 
whenever  it  could  not  be  twisted  to  serve  a  re- 
ligious symbolism.  Goethe  witnessed  in  his  own 
fashion  these  frenzies  of  German  culture,  placing 
himself  outside  them,  gently  resisting,  silent,  as- 
serting himself  always  more  and  more  upon  his  own 
path  ...  a  better  one.  A  little  later,  Schopenhauer 
also  was  a  witness.  .  .  .  What  was  it  after  all  that 
seduced  the  foreigners  —  that  made  them  fail  to  be- 
have as  Goethe  and  Schopenhauer,  or  merely  fail  to 
look  elsewhere?  It  was  that  pale  luster  that  milky- 
way-like  enigmatic  light  that  shone  above  that 
culture  —  that  caused  foreigners  to  say :  '  here 
is  something  that  is  very,  very  far  from  us ;  we 
lose  therein  our  senses  of  sight,  of  hearing,  and 
of  understanding,  our  senses  of  enjoyment  and  of 
valuation ;  but  nevertheless  it  might  be  true  that 
they  are  stars.  Have  then  the  Germans  quietly 
discovered  a  corner  of  Heaven  and  settled  them- 
selves in  it?  We  must  seek  to  get  nearer  to  those 
Germans.'  .  .  .  And  they  did  come  nearer.  Mean- 
while, these  same  Germans  began,  a  little  later,  to 
take  much  pains  to  rid  themselves  of  that  milky- 
way-like  luster.    They  themselves  were  well  aware 


250  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

that  they  had  not  been  dwelHng  in  Heaven,  but  in  a 
cloud." 

However,  romanticism  of  frenzy  or  romanticism 
of  milky  sweetness,  we  term  romanticism,  as  Goethe 
expressed  it  very  well,  that  art  which  is  not  quite 
healthy.  Romanticism  always  proceeds  from  a 
weakness,  be  it  a  nervous  or  a  neurasthenic  one. 
One  might  say  that  classical  art  and  romantic  art 
are  both  dreams,  since  they  are  arts,  but  that  one 
is  a  strong  man's  dream  and  the  other  a  weak  man's 
dream.  "  The  minds,  in  the  classical  sense,  as  much 
as  the  minds  in  a  romantic  sense, —  both  kinds  will 
ever  exist  —  carry  with  them  a  vision  of  the  future ; 
but  the  first  category  causes  that  vision  to  spring 
from  the  strength  of  its  time,  and  the  second  from 
the  weakness  thereof." 

This  strong  art  is  of  course,  first  of  all  realistic. 
It  clings  to  reality  as  much  as  the  properly  and  ex- 
clusively dreamy  art  shuns  it  as  if  it  were  repulsive. 
But  it  must  not  forget  that  every  art  is  a  choice, 
and  take  great  care  not  to  love  all  that  is  real,  or 
to  wish  to  seize,  imitate  and  reproduce  all  that 
is  real.  Style,  which  itself  is  an  art,  shows  us  here 
the  measure  in  which  art  must  be  realistic  and  ap- 
propriate the  real :  "  In  the  same  manner  as  the 
good  prose  writer  only  uses  words  pertaining  to 
conversation  but  is  careful  not  to  use  all  the  words 
thereof  —  and  thus  precisely  is  the  select  style 
formed  —  in  that  manner  shall  the  good  poet  of  the 
future  represent  nothing  but  the  real  things,  alto- 
gether neglecting  all  the  vague  and  obsolete  objects, 
which  are  made  up  of  superstitions  and  half-sin- 


digression:  literary  ideas  of  nietzsche     251 

cerities  —  in  which  the  ancient  poets  showed  their 
virtuosity.  Nothing  but  reahty;  yet  not  at  all  the 
whole  of  reality!  Much  rather  a  selected  reality." 
This  true  art,  strong  and  sincere,  does  not  exclude 
flexibility.  Better,  it  should  be  flexibility  itself,  as 
much  as  the  other  art,  sensing  its  own  weakness, 
whatever  its  nature,  will  always  starch  itself  and 
will  always  show  something  stiff,  or  somewhat  stif- 
fened, and,  even  in  sweetness,  something  grimacing. 
.  .  .  Do  you  wish  to  know  in  what  consists  flexibil- 
ity? Flexibility  is  freedom.  The  most  flexible 
writer  is  the  freest.  Take  Laurence  Sterne  for  in- 
stance: "  How  could  I,  in  a  hook  for  men  of  free 
minds,  fail  to  mention  Sterne,  whom  Goethe  re- 
vered as  the  freest  mind  of  his  century?  Let  him 
receive  here  the  honor  of  being  called  the  freest 
writer  of  all  times.  Compared  to  him,  all  the  others 
appear  starched,  devoid  of  finesse,  intolerant  and  of 
a  truly  peasant-like  gait.  .  .  .  Sterne  is  the  great 
master  of  the  equivocal.  That  word  is,  of  course, 
taken  here  in  a  far  broader  sense  than  one  is  ac- 
customed to  do  when  one  is  merely  thinking  of 
sexual  relations.  The  reader  is  at  a  loss,  when  he 
wishes  to  ascertain,  with  any  certainty,  Sterne's  own 
opinion,  and  to  know  whether  the  author  is  assuming 
a  smiling  or  saddened  air,  because  he  knows  how 
to  give  both  expressions  to  the  same  lines  of  his 
face.  lie  knows  also,  and  it  is  his  aim,  how  to  be, 
at  the  same  time,  right  and  wrong,  how  to  inter- 
mingle depth  and  buffoonery.  His  digressions  arc. 
at  the  same  time,  continuations  of  his  narrative  and 
developments  of  the  subject.     His  sentences  con- 


252  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

tain,  at  the  same  time,  an  irony  of  all  that  is  senten- 
tious. His  aversion  for  all  that  is  serious  is  linked 
to  a  desire  to  be  able  to  consider  everything  flat  and 
from  the  outside.  In  that  v^ay  he  does  produce 
upon  the  genuine  reader  a  sensation  of  uncertainty. 
One  knows  no  longer  if  one  is  walking,  standing  or 
lying  down.  This  shows  itself  in  a  vague  impres- 
sion of  planing  (applicable  to  Renan  and  also  to 
Nietzsche  himself).  He,  the  most  flexible  writer, 
transmits  to  the  reader  also  something  of  that  flex- 
ibility. Sterne  goes  so  far  as  to  change  parts  un- 
wittingly. He  is,  at  times,  reader  as  well  as  author ; 
his  work  resembles  a  play  within  a  play,  a  theater 
audience  in  presence  of  another  theater  audience. 
...  Is  it  necessary  to  add  that,  of  all  the  great 
writers,  Sterne  is  the  worst  possible  model,  the 
writer  who  should,  least  of  all,  be  taken  as  a  model, 
and  that  Diderot  himself  must  have  paid  the  penalty 
for  his  servility?  .  .  .  Unfortunately,  Sterne  the 
man  seems  to  have  been  too  near  a  relation  of  Sterne 
the  writer.  His  squirrel-like  soul  was  always 
bounding  from  branch  to  branch  with  an  unre- 
strained vivaciousness.  He  was  ignorant  of  noth- 
ing that  could  exist  between  the  sublime  and  the 
rascally.  He  had  perched  everywhere,  ever  making 
saucy  and  tear-veiled  eyes,  and  ever  assuming  his 
sensible  air.  Were  it  not  that  the  tongue  balks  at 
such  an  association  of  words,  one  could  assert  that 
he  was  possessed  of  a  *  good  hard  heart '  and,  in 
his  method  of  enjoyment,  of  a  baroque  and  corrupt 
imagination  that  was  almost  the  gracefulness  of 
innocence.     Such  a  sense  of  the  equivocal,  settled 


digression:  literary  ideas  of  NIETZSCHE     253 

in  the  soul  and  blood,  such  a  freedom  of  the  mind, 
filling  all  the  fibers  and  muscles  of  the  body  —  per- 
haps no  one  has  possessed  these  qualities  as  he  did." 

This  flexibility  of  the  strong  art  bears  very  fre- 
quently the  hall-mark  of  what  has  been  aptly  teniied 
the  gracefulness  of  carelessness.  This  carelessness 
must  not  be  an  affected  one.  It  must  exist  in  the 
natural  movement  of  a  being  that  does  not  put  into 
an  action  of  his  all  the  strength  at  his  disposal :  "  A 
work  that  is  intended  to  produce  an  impression  of 
health  must  be  executed  with  tio  more  than  three 
quarters  of  the  strength  of  its  author.  If  the  author 
has  given  his  extreme  measure,  the  work  will  agi- 
tate the  audience  and  frighten  by  its  tension.  All 
good  things  allow  a  certain  laisser-aller  to  be  appar- 
ent, and  spread  themselves  before  our  eyes  like  cows 
in  pasture."  In  art  there  must  be  something  akin 
to  bread  :  "  Bread  neutralizes  the  taste  of  the  other 
foods ;  it  tones  them  down ;  that  is  why  bread  is  an 
item  of  all  our  meals.  In  all  works  of  art  there 
must  be  something  like  bread,  in  order  that  it  may 
link  different  effects,  effects  that  would,  if  they 
followed  each  other  immediately,  without  one  of 
those  spontaneous  pauses  and  stops,  rapidly  exhaust 
and  provoke  repugnance ;  —  that  would  make  a 
long  '  meal  of  art '  impossible." 

It  is  even  a  question,  but  a  more  personal  one, 
peculiar  to  philosophers  and  even  more  particular 
to  Nietzsche,  to  what  length  one  must  be  clear,  or 
rather  in  what  way  one  must  be  clear,  and  in  what 
matters  one  must  be  more  or  less  clear.  In  this, 
Nietzsche  is  not  suspected.    He  worshiped  the  Greek 


254  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

clearness,  and  the  French  clearness.  He  considered 
clearness  to  be  the  honesty  of  the  philosopher.  He 
was  himself,  most  of  the  time,  sovereignly  clear  be- 
cause he  enjoyed  a  high  intellectual  probity.  He 
exclaimed  with  ravishment,  thinking  of  Schopen- 
hauer, and  especially  of  himself :  "  At  last  we  are 
becoming  clear !  "  But  Nietzsche  knows  also  the 
shades,  the  measures  and  the  varieties,  and  he  knows 
that  there  was  a  deceptive  clearness  and  a  clear- 
obscure  suggestiveness,  that  there  existed  cases 
when  a  little  penumbra  was  suitable  and  others  when 
a  flash  of  sharp  but  rapid  light  was  seemly.  The 
page  in  which  he  wrote  all  this,  which  pertains  at 
the  same  time  to  the  philosopher,  the  artist  and  the 
humorist,  and  which  Renan  and  also  Sterne  might 
have  written,  is  one  of  the  truest  and  also  one  of  the 
prettiest  he  ever  wrote.  It  shows  but  a  grain  of 
paradox,  and  even  that  was  in  the  fair  measure: 
"  When  one  writes  one  wishes  not  only  to  be  un- 
derstood but  also  not  to  be  understood.  It  is  no 
objection  against  a  book  that  some  one  finds  it 
incomprehensible.  It  may  have  been  part  of  the 
author's  intentions  not  to  be  understood  by  every- 
body. Every  man  of  distinguished  mind,  with  a  dis- 
tinguished taste,  thus  selects  his  audience  when  he 
wishes  to  communicate  himself.  In  selecting  those 
he  sets  himself  out  of  the  way  of  the  others.  All 
the  subtle  rules  of  a  style  have  their  origin  in  this. 
They  remove  at  the  same  time,  they  create  a  dis- 
tance, they  forbid  entrance,  while  they  open  the 
ears  of  those  that  are  our  kinsmen  by  the  ear.  Be- 
tween ourselves,  in  my  own  particular  case,  I  do 


DIGRESSION  :    LITERARY    IDEAS   OF    NIETZSCHE        255 

not  wish  to  be  prevented  by  my  ignorance,  nor  the 
vivacity  of  my  temperament,  from  being  compre- 
hensible to  you,  my  friends,  albeit  my  vivacity  com- 
pels me  rapidly  to  approach  a  thing  if  1  want 
to  be  able  to  get  near  it.  Because  I  tackle  deep 
problems  as  I  would  a  cold  bath  —  in  quickly  and 
quickly  out.  To  think  that,  in  this  wise,  one  does 
not  reach  the  depths,  that  one  does  not  get  deep 
enough,  is  the  superstition  of  those  that  fear  water, 
of  the  enemies  of  cold  water.  They  speak  with- 
out experience.  Great  cold  makes  one  prompt. 
And,  by  the  way,  does  a  thing  remain  incompre- 
hensible and  unknown  because  it  is  but  touched 
flying,  caught  with  one  glance  or  a  flash?  Is  it 
really  necessary  to  begin  by  firmly  silting  on  it,  to 
hatch  it  like  an  egg}  At  least  there  are  certain 
truths  that  have  special  modesty  and  susceptibility, 
that  can  only  be  possessed  in  an  unexpected  man- 
ner, that  one  must  seize  unaware  or  else  leave 
alone.  .  .  .  My  brevity  is  based  upon  yet  an- 
other reason.  I  have  to  explain  many  of  the 
questions  that  engross  my  mind  in  a  few  words 
in  order  to  be  ambiguously  understood.  For  one 
should  avoid,  as  immoralist,  to  pervert  innocence; 
I  am  referring  to  the  donkeys  and  the  old  maids 
of  both  sexes  whose  one  life  profit  is  their  inno- 
cence. It  were  much  better  that  my  works  should 
arouse  enthusiasm  in  them,  uplift  them  and  urge 
them  towards  virtue.  I  know  nothing  on  earth  that 
is  more  joyful  than  the  spectacle  of  old  donkeys 
and  old  maids  moved  by  the  sweet  sentiment  of  vir- 
tue, and  '  I  have  seen  that,'  as  Zarathustra  said. 


256  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

This  much  concerning  brevity.     It  becomes  more 
serious  when  it  is  a  matter  of  my  own  ignorance, 
which  I  do  not  wish  to  hide  from  myself.     There 
are  hours  when  I  am  ashamed  of  it;  yet  it  is  true 
enough  that  there  are  hours  when  I  am -ashamed  of 
that  shame.     It  may  be  that  we  philosophers  are 
today   in   an   unpleasant   attitude   towards   human 
knowledge.     Science  grows,  and  the  most  savant 
among  us  are  ready  to  perceive  that  they  know  but 
little.     True,  it  were  even  worse  otherwise,  if  they 
knew  too  many  things.     Our  duty  above  all  others  is 
to  avoid  creating  confusion  with  ourselves.    We  are 
something  else  besides  being  savants ;  although  it  is 
unavoidable  that,  among  other  things,  we  be  also 
savants.     We  have  other  needs,  another  growth,  and 
another  digestion ;  we  need  more ;  we  also  need  less. 
There  is  no  formula  to  define  the  quantity  of  food 
required  by  a  mind.     If  however,  its  taste  is  pre- 
disposed to  independence,  to  sudden  arrivals  and 
rapid  departures,  to  travels,  perhaps  to  the  adven- 
tures  that  alone  are   suitable   to  the  quickest,  it 
will  prefer  to  live  free  on  a  frugal  diet  than  choke 
full  and  in  constraint.     Not  fat,  but  a  greater  nim- 
bleness  and  a  greater  vigor  does  a  dancer  seek  in 
his  food,  and  I  know  of  no  more  suitable  desire  for 
a  philosopher's  mind  than  that  of  being  a  good 
dancer.     Because  dance  is  its  ideal,  its  particular 
art  and  finally  also  its  only  piety,  its  cult.  .  .  ." 

Yes,  Sterne  would  have  said  the  same  thing,  with 
more  carelessness,  Renan  more  discreetly,  and  Hein- 
rich  Heine  almost  in  the  same  words,  even  though 
with  more  dash.     There  is  here  nevertheless  a  sort 


digression:  literary  ideas  of  NIETZSCHE     257 

of    parlor    wherein     Sterne,    Renan,    Heine    and 
Nietzsche  are  smihngly  chatting. 

After  all,  Nietzsche  is  of  that  race  —  an  inter- 
national one  —  fine,  lively,  huinoristic  and  ironical. 
In  spite  of  his  passion  for  "  force,"  he  is  also  a 
sworn  enemy  of  brutality,  which  is  not  at  all  tlie  same 
thing.  In  his  dream  of  a  superhuman  elite  which 
would  be  deliberately  conquering  and  oppressive,  he 
always  includes  the  refined  manners.  The  vulgar- 
ity and  the  violence  of  a  part  of  present  day  art 
inspired  him  with  horror.  Yet  it  also  caused  him 
pleasure  in  this,  that  it  might  well  have  its  reper- 
cussion upon  the  very  foundation,  upon  manners 
themselves,  and  gradually  create  a  people  of  savages 
over  whom  a  strong  and  polished  elite  would  rule. 
He  compared  the  three  centuries  in  this  light,  as  he 
did  in  so  many  others,  and  he  acknowledged  a 
decadence  which,  for  the  reasons  I  have  stated,  both 
repel  and  tickle  him:  "If  one  ceaselessly  forbids 
one's  self  the  expression  of  the  passions,  as  some- 
thing that  must  be  left  to  the  vulgar,  the  coarser 
ones,  the  bourgeois  and  the  peasant-like  natures;  if 
one,  then,  wishes  to  restrain,  not  the  passions  them- 
selves but  their  language  and  gestures,  one  reaches 
nevertheless,  at  the  same  time,  that  which  one  did  not 
dream  of  attaining,  that  is  the  repression  of  the 
passions  themselves,  or,  at  least,  their  weakening  and 
their  transformation  —  as  happened  (an  instructive 
example)  with  the  Court  of  Louis  XIV  and  all 
that  depended  from  it.  The  following  period, 
brought  up  to  use  restraint  with  regard  to  the  exte- 
rior forms,  had  lost  the  passions  themselves,  and  as- 


258  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

sumed,  on  the  other  hand,  an  elegant,  superficial 
and  playful  gait.  That  period  was  so  incapable  of 
*  ungentlemanliness  '  that  even  an  offence  was  never 
received  and  returned  without  courteous  words. 
Perhaps  our  own  epoch  offers  a  strange  counter- 
part to  that.  Everywhere,  in  real  life  or  on  the 
stage,  and,  not  least  of  all,  in  everything  that  is 
written,  I  see  the  feeling  of  comfort  caused  by  all 
the  coarse  irruptions  and  all  the  vulgar  gestures  of 
passion.  People  insist  nowadays  upon  a  certain 
convention  of  the  passionate  character;  but,  at  no 
price,  would  they  accept  passion  itself.  Neverthe- 
less, it  will  be  reached  in  time,  and  our  descendants 
will  possess  a  true  savagery,  and  not  merely  the 
savagery  and  coarseness  of  manners." 

These  matters  of  good  deportment  and  of  allure 
were  extremely  engrossing  to  Nietzsche.  He 
rightly  recognized  the  born  artists  or  writers,  for  in- 
stance in  this,  that  they  know  how  to  "  find  the  end- 
ing," to  stop  just  where  they  should,  with  precision, 
surety  and  gracefulness  (it  was  not  often  that 
Nietzsche  could  do  that  himself):  "The  masters 
of  the  first  quality  are  to  be  known  by  this.  In 
great  as  in  small  things,  they  know  how  perfectly 
to  find  the  ending,  be  it  the  end  of  a  melody  or  of  a 
thought,  be  it  the  fifth  act  of  a  tragedy  or  a  Gov- 
ernment's Act.  The  second  rate  masters  always 
become  nervous  towards  the  end.  They  do  not  in- 
cline towards  the  sea,  with  a  simple  and  quiet 
rhythm,  as  does  for  instance  the  mountain  near 
Porto-Fino,  over  there  where  the  bay  of  Genoa 
sings  the  concluding  song  of  its  melody." 


digression:  literary  ideas  of  nietzsche     259 

Manners  and  gait  are  matters  of  race  and  heredity 
almost  as  much  as  of  culture,  and  that  comes  to  say- 
ing that  they  are  matters  of  very  long  culture: 
"There  exist  manners  of  the  mind  through  which 
even  men  of  great  minds  lead  one  to  surmise  that 
they  came  from  the  populace  or  the  semi-populace. 
.  ,  .  They  do  not  know  how  to  walk.  .  .  .  Napo- 
leon did  not  know  how  to  walk  in  public  ceremonies. 
.  .  .  People  will  certainly  laugh  when  looking  at 
those  writers  that  make  the  ample  clothing  of  the 
period  rustle  about  them  —  they  wish  to  hide  their 
feet." 

Nietzsche  gave  as  little  attention  to  the  modern 
theater  as  he  gave  much  to  the  antique  theater, 
wherein  he  saw,  rightly  perhaps,  so  many  things. 
Nevertheless,  we  must  record  his  theory  of  the 
theater,  considered  as  the  starting  point  of  literary 
decadence  and  as  symptom  of  incipient  social  de- 
cadence. His  is  a  theory  of  the  amorality  of  the 
theater.  We  must  record  also  deep  remarks  of  his 
upon  the  Cornelian  genius  which  he  marvelously 
penetrated,  and  which  he  analyzed  —  that  can  be  well 
enough  understood  —  with  a  sort  of  loving  passion. 

Nietzsche  thought  that  "  the  theater  has  its  own 
time  "  which  already  ceases  to  be  that  of  the  full 
imaginative  vigor  of  a  people.  The  time  of  the 
full  imaginative  vigor  of  a  race  is  the  period  of  the 
Epopee.  But  so  soon  as  the  people  needs  to  have 
materially  represented  its  heroes  and  its  legends, 
that  means  that  the  people  imagines,  thinks  and 
represents  to  itself  things  in  a  much  less  energetic 
fashion :     "  When  the  imagination  of  a  people  is 


26o  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

relaxed,  there  is  born  in  it  an  inclination  to  have  its 
legends  re-presented  on  the  stage.  It  bears,  it  can 
bear  the  coarse  substitutes  for  the  imagination.  But 
in  the  epoch  to  which  the  epical  rhapsody  belongs, 
the  theater  and  the  comedian,  disguised  as  a  hero, 
would  prove  a  fetter  instead  of  an  aid  to  the  imagin- 
ation. They  are  too  near,  too  definite,  too  heavy, 
too  little  dream  and  bird-flight  like."  This,  in  my 
opinion,  is  absolutely  just,  and  it  explains  how  litera- 
tures, I  would  not  say,  end  in  the  theater,  but  in  a 
way  have  their  culminating  point  in  the  theater. 
First  of  all  comes  the  epopee  that  affords  satisfac- 
tion to  a  still  lively  and  strong  popular  imagination. 
It  collaborates  with  the  poet,  and  has  a  neat  and 
powerful  vision  of  what  the  poet  narrates.  Then 
comes  the  theater,  when  the  crowd,  now  less  imagin- 
ative, is  more  passive,  needs  no  longer  to  collaborate 
and  fails  to  be  shocked  at  the  coarse  materialization 
of  its  dreams.  Finally,  the  theater  itself  declines, 
becomes  still  more  material,  and  turns  into  an  exhi- 
bition, a  museum,  a  furniture  and  drapery  shop- 
window.  Literature  applies  itself  elsewhere,  but  is 
itself  no  more  than  a  recreation  for  an  elite  and  for 
dilettantes,  and  popular  literature  simply  ceases  to 
exist. 

As  to  the  morality  or  the  amorality  of  the  theater, 
Nietzsche  is  convinced  that  the  great  dramatists 
have  no  care  whatsoever  for  morality  and  only 
think  of  depicting  life.  It  is  we  ourselves,  people  or 
bourgeois  public,  without  unrestrainable  tendency, 
to  wish  that  morality  invade  everything  and  that  all 
art  consist  in  asserting  morality  and  in  tending  to 


DIGRESSION  :    LITERARY    IDEAS   OF    NIETZSCHE        26 1 

it  as  its  last  goal  —  we  it  is  that  introduce  a  moral 
character  and  a  moral  meaning  into  the  masterpieces 
of  the  stage  with  much  show  of  nonsense.  "  Con- 
cerning the  morality  of  the  foot-lights.  He  is  mis- 
taken who  thinks  that  the  effect  produced  by  the 
theater  of  Shakespeare  is  moral  and  that  the  sight 
of  Macbeth  deters  for  ever  from  the  evil  of  ambi- 
tion. He  is  again  mistaken  when  he  fancies  that 
Shakespeare  had  the  same  feeling  about  it  that  he 
has  himself.  The  man  that  is  truly  possessed  with 
a  furious  ambition  contemplates  with  joy  that  image 
of  himself,  and  when  the  hero  perishes  through  his 
passion,  that  constitutes  precisely  the  most  biting 
spice  in  the  warm  drink  of  his  joy.  Has  the  poet 
then  felt  any  other  sentiment?  His  ambitious  char- 
acter royally  rushes  to  his  goal,  and  without  any- 
thing of  the  rogue  about  him,  as  soon  as  the  crime 
is  accomplished.  It  is  only  from  that  moment  that 
he  exercises  a  diabolical  attraction  and  urges  to  imi- 
tation natures  similar  to  his  own.  Diabolical  — 
that  means  this:  revolt  against  advantage  and  life 
to  the  benefit  of  an  idea  and  of  an  instinct.  Do  you 
think  that  Tristan  and  Isolde  act  as  witnesses  against 
adultery  because  of  the  fact  that  adultery  causes 
both  their  deaths?  That  would  be  making  the 
poets  stand  on  their  heads.  Poets,  especially  those 
like  Shakespeare,  are  in  love  with  passion  in  it- 
self, and  not  at  all  with  the  disposition  to  death 
that  it  generates.  The  heart  does  not  cling  to  life 
in  that  disposition  any  more  than  a  drop  of  water 
clings  to  a  glass.  Xot  the  fault  and  its  unpleasant 
consequences  interest  them  —  Shakespeare  any  more 


262 


ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 


than  Sophocles  (Ajax,  Philoctetes,  CEdipus).  Al- 
beit it  would  have  been  easy  in  the  cases  indicated, 
to  make  of  the  fault  the  lever  of  the  drama,  that 
was  expressly  avoided.  Thus  the  tragic  port,  with 
his  images  of  life,  does  not  wish  to  warn  against 
life.  On  the  contrary  he  exclaims :  **  It  is  the 
charm  of  all  charms,  this  agitated,  changing,  dan- 
gerous, dark  and  often  ardently  sunny  life.  To 
live  is  an  adventure.  Take  this  or  that  decision,  it 
will  always  preserve  this  character.  Thus  does 
he  speak  in  a  restless  and  vigorous  period,  almost 
intoxicated  and  stupefied  by  the  superabundance  of 
blood  and  energy,  in  a  period  much  worse  than  our 
own.  That  is  why  we  need,  commodiously,  to  ac- 
commodate ourselves  to  the  purpose  of  one  of 
Shakespeare's  dramas,  as  we  might  say,  not  to  un- 
derstand it." 

The  theater  does  not  cause  one  to  hate  the  faults  it 
represents.  It  causes  them  to  be  loved  by  those 
that  are  inclined  to  them,  by  idealizing  them  even 
through  misfortune,  even  through  death.  It  only 
causes  them  to  be  hated  by  those  that  already  hate 
them  and  that  can  only  derive  a  moral  lesson  from 
the  great  poem  on  condition  that  they  are  not  moved 
by  it.  The  theater  therefore  moralizes  only  for 
those  whom  it  bores. 

Coming  to  Corneille,  one  can  well  imagine  that 
Nietzsche  would  adore  him.  He  found  his  "  super- 
human "  or  his  "  superman  "  at  every  page,  and  if 
he  had  been  of  a  jealous  disposition,  he  would  have 
hated  Corneille,  exclaiming :  "  How  many  ideas  this 
man  has  stolen  from  me !  "     A  hundred  passages  of 


DIGRESSION  :    LITERARY    IDEAS   OF    NIETZSCHE        263 

Nietzsche  allude  to  Corneille's  drama.  Vice  versa, 
and  this  does  honor  to  both,  one  could  make  an  ex- 
cellent steady  commentary  upon  Corneille  with  some 
of  Nietzsche's  texts.  I  shall  give  here  but  the  two 
essential  passages  of  Nietzsche  on  Corneille,  one  that 
characterizes  the  Cornelian  genius  in  general,  and 
the  other  evidently  inspired  by  a  reading  of  Cinna, 
showing  what  a  profound  psychologist  of  the  great 
souls  and  what  a  historian  of  the  "  superior  race  " 
Corneille  was : 

"  I  am  told  that  our  art  appeals  to  the  men  of  to- 
day, greedy,  insatiable,  weary  and  tormented,  and 
that  it  offers  them  an  image  of  beatitude,  eleva- 
tion and  sublimity  by  the  side  of  the  image  of  their 
ugliness,  in  order  to  make  it  possible  for  them  to 
forget,  for  a  time,  and  freely  to  breathe,  perhaps 
even  to  bring  back  from  this  forgetfulness  an  incite- 
ment to  flight  and  conversion.  Poor  artists,  who 
have  such  a  public !  With  such  by-thoughts,  which 
pertain  to  the  priest  and  the  alienist !  How  much 
happier  was  Corneille,  '  our  great  Corneille,  as 
Madame  de  Sevigne  exclaimed  in  the  accents  of  a 
zvoman  in  the  presence  of  a  complete  man,  how  far 
superior  was  Corneille's  public,  to  which  he  could 
do  good  with  images  of  chivalresque  virtue,  stern 
duty,  generous  sacrifice  and  heroic  self  discipline! 
How  differently  they  both  loved  existence,  not  as 
one  created  by  a  blind  and  unpolished  will  that  one 
curses  because  one  does  not  know  how  to  destroy 
it!  They  loved  existence  as  a  place  where  great- 
ness and  humanity  are  possible  at  the  same  time, 
and  where  even  the  severest  constraint  of  the  forms, 


264  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

the  submission  to  a  princely  or  ecclesiastical  pleas- 
ure can  stifle  neither  the  pride  nor  the  chivalresque 
sentiment,  nor  the  gracefulness  nor  the  minds  of  all 
individuals,  where  they  are  rather  considered  as  an 
added  charm  and  a  spur  for  one  to  create  a  con- 
trast to  hereditary  sovereignty  and  nobility,  to  the 
hereditary  power  of  will  and  power  of  passion !  " 
Here  is  now  a  portrait  of  Augustus,  after  Cor- 
neille,  a  singularly  sharp  and  subtle  analysis,  of 
which  one  might  contest  a  few  points,  but  an 
extremely  right  one  in  its  essence  and  ensemble,  one, 
moreover,  which  is  applicable  to  a  good  half  of  the 
Cornelian  drama,  and  which  gives  us  something  like 
Corneille  commented  upon  by  La  Rochefoucauld: 
"  Generosity  and  the  like.  Paradoxical  phenomena 
as  sudden  coldness  in  the  attitude  of  a  sentimental 
man,  such  as  the  melancholy  humor,  such,  above  all 
things,  as  generosity,  taken  as  a  sudden  renounce- 
ment to  vengeance  or  the  satisfaction  of  envy,  are 
presented  by  men  that  possess  a  great  centrifugal 
force,  by  men  that  are  taken  with  a  sudden  satiety 
and  a  sudden  disgust.  Their  satisfactions  are  so 
rapid  and  violent  that  they  are  immediately  followed 
by  antipathy,  repugnance  and  escape  into  the  op- 
posite taste.  In  these  contrasts  the  crises  of  senti- 
ment are  solved,  in  one  man  through  a  sudden  cold- 
ness, in  another,  through  an  access  of  hilarity,  in  a 
third  one,  through  tears  and  the  sacrifice  of  self. 
To  me  the  generous  man — at  least  that  kind  of  gen- 
erous men  that  have  always  most  impressed  us  — 
seems  to  be  a  man  with  an  extreme  thirst  for  re- 
venge, who  sees  quite  close  by,  the  possibility  of 


DIGRESSION  :    LITERARY    IDEAS   OF    NIETZSCHE        265 

quenching  it,  and  who,  emptying  the  cup  to  the  last 
drop,  is  already  satisfied  i;i  his  tniaijination,  so  that  a 
rapid  and  enormous  disgust  follows  that  debauch.^ 
He  then  rises  above  himself,  as  one  says;  he  for- 
gives his  enemy.  He  even  blesses  him  and  respects 
him.  In  that  violation  of  his  own  self,  with  that 
mockery  of  his  instinct  for  vengeance,  a  minute  ago 
still  so  powerful,  he  does  but  give  way  to  a  new  in- 
stinct that  has  powerfully  manifested  itself  in  him 
(disgust),  and  this  with  the  same  impatient  debauch 
he  had  previously  experienced  in  drinking  before- 
hand in  his  imagination,  in  exhausting,  in  a  way,  the 
joy  of  vengeance.*  There  is,  in  generosity,  the  same 
degree  of  egotism  as  in  vengeance,  but  this  egotism 
is  of  another  quality.^ 

The  literary  and  artistic  ideas  of  Nietzsche  are 
not  connected.  He  did  not  make  a  system  of  them, 
nor  a  general  theory.     Yet  they  are  very  original,  as 

*  Cinna.     V.   i. 

«Cinna.    V.  3. 

■Let  us  add  this  also  (and  one  could  go  on  quoting) 
obviously  inspired  by  the  Cid,  or  Nicomcde  or  by 
Sertorius:  "  It  is  the  women  that  pale  at  the  idea  that 
their  lover  might  not  be  worthy  of  them;  it  is  the 
men  that  pale  at  the  idea  that  they  might  be  unworthy 
of  their  mistresses  I  am  speaking  of  complete  men  and 
women.  Such  men,  who  usually  possess  self -confidence 
and  the  feeling  of  power,  feel  a  state  of  passion  of 
timidity  and  a  sort  of  doubt  of  themselves.  Such  women, 
on  the  other  hand,  always  consider  themselves  as  weak 
creatures,  ready  for  the  abandon ;  but  in  the  sublime 
exception  of  passion,  they  have  their  pride  and  their 
feeling  of  power  and  they  ask:  'Who  then  is  worthy  of 
me?'" 


266  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

he  often  is,  very  penetrating,  as  most  oPhis  ideas 
are,  and  they  all  pertain,  as  is  natural  with  this 
great  aristocrat,  to  the  conception  or  the  dream  of  a 
sane,  virile,  strong  and  noble  art.  They  are  ener- 
getically contemptuous  of  the  sensibility  of  romance, 
of  the  sickly  and  consumptive  elegiac  art,  also  of 
the  art  that  is  overburdened,  complicated,  violent, 
tortured  and  vehement  through  a  sentiment  of  its 
intimate  weakness,  and  again  of  the  art  that  is  basely 
comic  and  trivial,  in  fine  of  all  the  forms  of  the 
popular  and  bourgeois  art.^  They  uplift  mind  and 
soul  towards  the  vision  of  an  art  made  by  a  superior 
kind  for  a  superior  kind.  They  express  in  their 
fashion  the  great  master-idea  of  the  author :  "  Man 
is  a  being  who  is  made  to  overcome  himself." 

1  This  is  illustrated  in  almost  every  volume  of  Nietzsche 
but  it  is  especially  interesting  to  recall  at  the  present  time 
his  views  on  French,  English  and  German  literature 
scattered  throughout  disconnected  chapters  of  Beyond 
Good  and  Evil.  Nietzsche  always  taxed  his  own  country- 
men with  the  lack  of  many  things,  especially  of  that 
presto  which  is  the  hall-mark  of  the  French. — (Trans- 
lator's Note.) 


CONCLUSION. 

Nietzsche  is  certainly  not  a  very  original  philoso- 
pher. He  could  be  easily  enough  reconstituted 
wholly  out  of  La  Rochefoucauld,  Goethe  and  Re- 
nan.  The  originality  of  his  talent  is,  on  one  side, 
very  beautiful  and  inspires  an  admiring  jealousy. 
On  the  other  side,  it  is  vulgar  and  breeds  a  desire 
to  scorn  it ;  it  is  shown  in  his  exaggeration,  his 
insolent  impudence  and  his  cynicism.  He  has  so 
little  discretion  there,  and  so  little  taste  that  he  be- 
comes ridiculous,  as  in  his  analysis  of  the  coition, 
which  is  of  a  rare  unconscious  burlesque,  or  in 
his  heavy  paradoxes  of  the  last  manner :  "  In  every 
great  action  there  is  a  crime." — "  Superiority  of  Pe- 
tronius  over  the  New  Testament.  Spiritual  super- 
iority of  Petronius.  Not  a  buffoonery  in  the  Gos- 
pels. That  alone  refutes  a  book."  Had  Renan 
fallen  into  a  second  childhood  he  might  have  reached 
this  point ;  but  that  would  not  have  made  it  more 
bearable. 

To  come  back  to  Nietzsche,  minus  his  talent  and 
minus  his  foolish  ways,  he  was  not  very  original. 
But  he  was  intelligent,  sharp,  subtle ;  he  dislocated 
and  dissolved  his  matter  in  a  masterly  fashion,  set 
it  up  again  with  no  little  audaciousness,  and  with  an 
ardor  in  his  violent  and  dark  convictions  that  com- 


268 ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

pels  one  to  think  and  that,  at  least  that  far,  there- 
fore, is  efficacious  and  fecund. 

He  is  crammed  with  contradictions.  M.  Fouillee 
has  pointed  them  out  with  much  finesse,  but  he  has 
admitted  also  that  these  contradictions  are  all 
soluble.  They  are  and  all  of  them,  more  or  less  pre- 
cisely, but  all  of  them,  were  solved  in  Nietzsche's 
own  mind. 

Nietzsche  said  that  all  things  had  an  equal  value, 
and  yet  he  ended  with  an  authority,  a  hierarchy 
for  men.  First  of  all,  he  very  rarely  said  that  all 
things  had  equal  value ;  his  efifort  consisted  espe- 
cially in  the  establishment  of  a  new  classification 
of  values.  Then,  in  Nietzsche's  mind,  all  things 
have  an  equal  value  in  themselves  and  there  is 
neither  good  nor  evil;  but  things  are  very  far  from 
having  the  same  value  in  relation  to  the  aim  and 
as  means  to  that  aim,  the  latter  being  a  greater, 
nobler  and  more  beautiful  humanity,  or,  to  use 
Kenan's  words,  realization  of  the  divine. 

Nietzsche  said  that  there  was  no  purpose  and 
no  sense  in  things,  and  yet  he  wanted  his  Superman 
to  be  or  to  make  himself  the  "  sense  of  the  Earth." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  things  have  no  meaning  what- 
soever but  the  man  that  overcomes  himself  gives  one 
to  them.  They  have  no  purpose  (which  would 
seem  elementarily  evident)  but  the  man  that  gets 
beyond  them  and  beyond  himself,  suddenly  endows 
them  with  one. 

Nietzsche  said  that  nothing  was  true  and  that  we 
must,  nevertheless,  find  or  invent  true  valuations. 
It  is  precisely  because  nothing  is  true  that  we  should 


CONCLUSION  269 

give  things  some  valuations,  not  true  ones  but  beau- 
tiful ones,  valuations  according  to  beauty.  That  is 
the  very  reason  why  no  one  can  impose  valuations 
of  truth  on  the  man  who  has  created — not  discov- 
ered but  created  aesthetic  valuations,  valuations  ac- 
cording to  the  beautiful. 

Nietzsche  said  that  everything  was  necessary,  that 
everything  passed  away  and  also  returned,  and  that 
we  should,  nevertheless,  create  something  that  has 
not  been.  It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  he  said  quite 
that.  He  said  that  everything  was  determined  but 
that  eternal  determination  had  it  that  all  things  pass 
away  and  return ;  he  said  that  some  men  created 
anew  states  of  society  and  of  humanity  that  have 
once  existed,  that  will  be  new  only  in  the  sense  of 
being  renewed,  perhaps  more  beautiful  in  their  lat- 
est form,  which  is  possible  and  therefore  to  be 
wished. 

Nietzsche  said  that  Egotism  was  the  foundation 
of  life,  and  tliat  we  should,  nevertheless,  practice  the 
great  love  which  is  that  of  complete  life  —  that  is 
to  say,  he  gave  egotism  its  true  definition :  to  put 
one's  love  for  one's  self  into  the  love  for  all  things. 
That  is  the  true  way  to  satisfy  the  love  of  self  in  a 
royal,  integral  and  thorough  fashion.  It  is  a  truth 
of  common  sense  and  almost  of  common  place. 

According  to  \ietzsche,  hardness  was  the  law  and 
we  should,  nevertheless,  have  the  "  great  pity." — 
That  was  not  quite  what  he  said  and  pity  was  not  his 
fault.  P.ut  if  he  did  say  it  somewhere,  he  must 
have  merely  meant  that  the  hardness  that  saves 
the  species  is  the  true  pity,  a  total  and  not  a  sottishly 


270  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

individual  pity.  However  I  do  not  know  that  he 
says  it ;  although  it  is  his  general  tendency. 

Nietzsche  said  that  desire  was  the  spring  of  the 
vital  instinct  but  that  we  should  nevertheless  desire 
pain.  He  meant  that  man  can  but  want  his  own 
good,  and  that  he  is  right  in  wanting  it,  but  that  he 
learns  or  should  learn  that  the  good,  even  the  ma- 
terial good,  can  be  acquired  and  bought  only  with 
accepted  pain,  even  with  pain  that  has  been  sought 
out  and  that,  therefore,  we  must  desire  pain. 

Nietzsche  said  that  all  passions  are  beneficial  and 
that  we  must  nevertheless  know  how  to  curb  them 
and  submit  them  to  a  severe  discipline.  He  meant 
that  the  passions,  which  are  the  various  forms  of 
our  egotism,  are  as  good  as  egotism  itself  but  that 
they  are  good  (i)  if  we  govern  them,  if  we  direct 
them.  In  the  same  way  are  all  natural  and  me- 
chanical forces  good.  (2)  They  are  good  especially 
owing  to  the  occasion  they  offer  us  to  fight  them  in 
order  to  tame  them,  since  the  finest  thing  in  man  is 
the  will  —  and  that  is  all  in  Descartes. 

Nietzsche  said  that  there  was  no  ideal,  and  yet 
that  we  must  sacrifice  everything  to  it,  that  we  must 
sacrifice  ourselves  to  the  life  that  is  highest,  fullest, 
richest  and  most  .  .  .  idealistic.  This  word  must 
be  used  since  it  sums  up  the  others. —  He  said  it 
with  truth  because,  for  any  man  who  does  not  be- 
lieve in  a  revelation,  it  is  tautologically  evident  that 
there  is  no  ideal.  But  it  is  also  almost  evident  that 
it  is  because  there  is  no  ideal  that  we  should  know 
how  to  create  one  in  order  to  have  an  aim,  and  that 
an  aim  is  necessary  to  us  is  practically  established. 


CONCLUSION  271 

Nietzsche  also  said  that  this  sacrifice  itself  was 
vain  because  we  can  never  change  things.  If  he 
did  say  this,  he  was  uttering  a  sublime  thought  be- 
cause it  amounted  to  saying  that  man,  in  sacrificing 
himself  for  the  sake  of  an  unrealizable  ideal,  was  but 
fulfilling  his  function  which  was  to  despise  things 
and  to  persist  in  changing  them  even  when  they  were 
immutable  and  when  he  knew  them  to  be  immutable. 
Man  derives,  nevertheless,  a  great  profit  from  this, 
that  of  having  changed  himself  and  of  having  made 
a  man  out  of  himself  instead  of  the  thing  which  he 
was. 

Thus  could  all  the  contradictions  of  Nietzsche  be 
solved,  without  much  trouble.  If  there  were  any 
left,  we  have  long  since  given  up  the  notion  that  we 
could  reproach  for  his  contradictions  a  man  who 
has  been  thinking  for  twenty  years,  and  whose  office 
is  to  make  us  think,  by  setting  forth  to  us  his  suc- 
cessive ideas,  a  man  who,  if  he  had  always  thought 
the  same  thing,  would  probably  be  a  fool  and  who, 
had  he  one  day  attempted  to  wipe  out  all  his  con- 
tradictions, would  have  only  been  trying  to  appear 
like  the  fool  that  he  was  not. 

Let  us  give  up  this  somewhat  futile  dispute  and 
seek  Nietzsche  in  the  two  or  three  general  ideas 
to  which  he  clung  and  upon  which  he  left  his  mark, 
and  let  us  examine  them  with  impartiality  and 
coolness. 

Leaving  aside  a  few  evasions  on  his  part,  he  has 
instituted  two  moralities,  one  vulgar  and  unfruitful, 
given  up  to  the  mob,  the  other  superior  and  pro- 
ductive  of   great   things,    immoral    in    appearance, 


2^2  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

contrary-wise  to  the  first  and  reserved  for  the  elite. 
This  contradicts  the  idea,  held  dear  by  humanity 
for  so  long  a  time,  of  a  universal  morality.  Let  us 
examine  this  point  first.  Is  morality  then  not  uni- 
versal ;  is  it  not  the  same  for  all  men  and  all  coun- 
tries, etc.  ...  as  Cicero  said  long  ago?  I  do  not 
think  that  it  is.  People  easily  think  that  morality 
is  universal  because  they  see  that  all  men  have  it, 
and  the  latter  fact  I  hold  to  be  correct.  But  the 
conclusion  derived  is  erroneous.  All  men  have  a 
morality  in  this  sense,  that  all  feel  themselves  com- 
pelled to  something.  They  feel  themselves  com- 
pelled to  something  because  they  are  all  "  geared  " 
to  a  society  (association,  aggregation  or  company) 
and  this  gear  constitutes,  of  itself,  an  ensemble  of 
duties.  A  brigand's  association  has  a  morality,  and 
a  very  strict  one.  A  pirate's  association  has  a 
morality,  and  a  very  severe  one.  A  pimp's  asso- 
ciation —  this  has  been  unearthed  in  Paris  —  has 
a  morality,  even  a  legislation  and  even  a  tribunal 
judging  the  conflicts.  An  association  of  conquerors, 
a  feudality  or  an  aristocracy  has  a  morality  and  a 
very  harsh  one.  And  so  on.  Now,  considering 
this  that  all  men  have  a  morality  and  that  there  is  no 
man  but  has  one,  people  conclude  that  they  have  the 
same  one.  Therein  lay  the  error.  The  fact  that 
all  men  have  a  morality  does  not  constitute  a  uni- 
versal morality.  It  merely  establishes  the  fact  that 
there  is  morality  everywhere  and  that  is  not  at  all  the 
same  thing.  The  universality  of  the  moral  fact  is 
not  the  same  thing  as  identity  of  morality.  It  would 
amount  to  saying  that,  because  all  men  are  religious, 


CONCLUSION  273 

there  is  but  one  religion  in  the  world.  From  the 
fact  that  there  is  perhaps  no  man  who  feels  himself 
compelled,  we  should  never  conclude  that  there  is 
but  one  obligation  under  different  fonns.  In  grant- 
ing me  these  last  words  "  under  different  forms  " 
you  would  be  already  granting  me  much,  almost 
everything,  to  wit,  that  there  is  no  identity  of  morali- 
ties. But  I  say  even  this,  that  there  are  feelings  of 
obligation  which  are  so  different,  so  contrary,  that 
one  cannot,  even  by  spending  very  much  time  over 
it,  bring  them  back  to  a  common  foundation.  There 
are  moralities  that  command  to  kill  and  others  that 
forbid  it.  There  are  moralities  that  command  to  re- 
spect one's  parents  and  others  that  command  to  sup- 
press them  when  they  reach  a  certain  age.  There 
are  moralities  for  the  foreigner  and  against  the  for- 
eigner. There  is  no  identity  whatsoever  of  human 
moralities. 

There  remains,  nevertheles,s,  this  fact,  that  all  men 
have  a  morality.  What  does  it  prove?  Simply  that 
all  men  are  associated,  some  to  one  group,  others 
to  another  group.  What  does  it  prove?  Simply 
that  all  men  are  sociable. 

—  But  even  an  isolated  man  would  have  a  moral- 
ity- 

—  Yes,  or  at  least,  he  would  have  a  self-discipline  ; 
but  he  would  not  have  any  sense  of  obligation.  He 
would  not  at  all  feel  compelled  to  practice  the  dis- 
cipline he  made  for  himself.  (Unless  he  had  pre- 
viously belonged  to  an  association  and  remembered 
it,  in  which  case  we  are  back  to  the  common  case. 
The  man  in  question  does  not  consider  himself  as 


274  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

being  isolated  but  as  separated  for  a  time  from  the 
association  that  compels  him.) 

Therefore  we  must  not  conclude,  from  the 
ubiquity  of  morality,  that  it  is  universal.  There  is 
one  everywhere,  but  it  is  not  everywhere;  it  is  not 
at  all  the  same  for  all  men.  Every  man  feels  him- 
self compelled ;  yet  there  is  no  moral  obligation  of 
any  kind  which  be  the  law  of  humanity. 

Nietzsche  was  then  right  when  he  imagined  his 
two  moralities? 

—  Yes,  but  he  was,  nevertheless,  also  wrong. 
There  are  not  two  moralities ;  there  is  an  undeter- 
mined number  of  them.  A  morality  for  the  elite, 
another  one  for  the  crowd ;  there  you  have  what  is 
quite  arbitrary,  capricious,  rash  and  as  little  scien- 
tific as  possible.  Where  does  the  mob  end  ?  Where 
does  the  elite  begin?  That  is  what  cannot  possibly 
be  determined.  What  man  among  us  may  say: 
"  The  morality  of  the  noble  men  is  meant  for  me 
and  not  for  this  other  man  "  ?  I  do  not  need  to 
point  out  that  if  the  morality  of  the  great  ones  ad- 
mits or  excuses  certain  vices  or  violent  actions,  it 
will  always  be  the  most  abject  of  "  slaves  "  who  will 
declare  themselves  elected  for  the  morality  of  the 
"  masters."  The  words  of  a  friend  of  mine,  who  is 
a  humorist,  will  be  right :  "  Nietzsche,  is  the 
morality  of   Tropmann."  ^    The  conception   of   a 

1 A  diligent  search  for  more  explicit  particulars  con- 
cerning Tropmann  which  I  could  place  before  the  readers 
led  me  nowhere  but  to  a  faint  recollection  of  a  series 
of  crimes  by  some  German  anarchist  in  France.  Faguet 
was  not  given  to  riddles  and  the  humour  seems  to  be  on 


CONCLUSION  275 

masters'  morality  and  a  slaves'  is  a  truly  coarse  one, 
I  mean  one  that  is  without  shades,  primitive,  recall- 
ing the  caste  regime  and  blind  to  the  multiple  dif- 
ferences of  degree  between  men. 

The  truth  is  that  there  are  very  many,  multiple 
and  multiplied  moralities  and  that  they  are  all  un- 
like each  other.  As  one  goes  up  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest  of  humanity,  one  demands,  quite 
naturally,  things  which  one  had  not  previously  in- 
sisted upon,  and  also,  I  am  willing  to  admit  it,  one 
ceases  to  demand  certain  things  upon  which  one 
had  previously  insisted. 

We  are  stern  towards  the  man  who,  rendering  to 
his  kind  the  mere  minimum  of  services,  is  yet  hard 
upon  those  upon  whom  he  can  bring  his  hardness  to 
bear,  or  is  dissolute,  etc. 

If  a  man  is  intelligent,  gifted  and  active  we  de- 
mand of  him  that  he  render  services  to  the  com- 
munity ;  first  of  all  that  he  remain  not  idle,  then  that 
he  be  not  satisfied  either  with  earning  a  living  or 
making  money.  We  want  him  to  do  something 
for  the  common  good;  we  consider  that  to  be  his 
duty,  and  he  himself  is  conscious  of  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  shall  be  indulgent  for  a  few  sensual  weak- 
nesses on  his  part ;  we  shall  bear  him  no  malice  if  he 
treats  himself  to  a  good  dinner  or  a  pretty  girl,  in 
moderation.^     You  can  very  well  see  that  here  is 

the  humorist.  But  then  did  not  Mrs.  Gamp  insist  that 
there  was  a  Mrs.  Harris? — (Translator's  Note.) 

^  Is  not  this  an  illustration  of  Faguet's  insistence  upon 
the  fact  that  there  are  many  codes  of  morality?  Many 
Anglo-Saxons    will    consider    him   an   "immoralist"   after 


2"]^  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

a  man,  who  yet  is  "  average,"  and  who  has  not  at 
all  the  same  morality,  and  to  whom  you  do  not  apply 
the  same  morality  that  you  did  to  the  minus  habens 
and  the  minus  potens  of  a  moment  ago.  One  shows 
him  more  exacting  on  the  one  side  and  more  indul- 
gent on  the  other. 

If,  finally,  a  man  has  rendered  eminent  services 
to  his  country  or  to  humanity,  the  whole  of  man- 
kind exacts  enormously  from  him,  does  not  admit 
that  he  abdicate,  or  relax  or  even  almost  rest;  on 
the  other  hand  people  freely  forgive  him  some 
vices.  Especially  do  they  instinctively  forgive  him 
for  being  autocratic,  imperious,  harsh,  and  for 
causing  his  grasp  and  weight  to  be  felt. 

Have  you  noticed  that,  as  we  come,  I  would  not 
say  to  the  most  deserving,  but  to  the  most  useful 
man,  to  the  man  who  rightly  or  wrongly  is  con- 
sidered the  most  useful  and  (for  one  has  to  use  the 
word)  the  strongest,  we  give  him  more  money  and 
we  unanimously  believe  —  exception  made  for  the 
Socialists  —  that  he  should  in  fact  receive  more? 
Why  is  that?  Does  he  need  more?  We  must  ac- 
knowledge that  it  is  because  we  admit  his  right  to 
more  satisfactions,  either  sensual,  or  of  luxury  or 
vanity. 

—  But,  wretched  man !  you  are  helping  his  vices ! 

—  Not  quite.  Nevertheless  we  must  admit  that 
we  do  excuse  him  for  having  those  vices  if  they 
be  not  too  grave,  more  than  we  would  another  man, 

this,  and  many  Slavs  begin  to  think  that  he  was  after  all, 
human,  all-too-human. —  CTranslator's  Note.) 


CONCLUSION  277 

to  compensate  or  to  balance  the  immense  services  we 
think  he  has  rendered  us. 

Thus  has  humanity  reasoned  more  or  less  con- 
sciously up  to  now.  It  may  be  that  it  shall  not 
always  reason  in  this  way.  That,  however,  human- 
ity has  persisted  in  this  frame  of  mind  for  what  is 
surely  an  appreciable  period,  proves  that  more  or 
less  confusedly  and,  in  truth,  clearly  enough,  it  has 
admitted  several  moralities. 

Do  you  not  see  that  it  admits  professional  moral- 
ities? It  admits  a  soldier's  morality,  which  is  not 
that  of  the  judge,  a  priest's  morality,  which  is  not 
that  of  the  workingman,  and  a  savant's  morality, 
which  is  not  that  of  the  ignorant  man.  Docs 
humanity  allow  me  to  cut  a  live  dog  into  little 
pieces?  Yet  it  allows  my  colleague  of  the  Faculte 
des  Sciences  to  do  it ;  it  encourages  him  to  do  it,  and 
rightly  too,  in  my  opinion. 

It  admits  a  morality  for  women,  one  which  is, 
come  to  think  of  it.  essentially  different  from  that 
of  the  men.  It  asks  chastity  from  women  as  an 
essential  virtue,  and  it  has  never  thought  of  holding 
chastity  to  be  an  essential  or  even  an  important 
virtue  in  men.  Women  themselves  share,  most  of 
them,  this  double  opinion.  They  despise  the  liber- 
tine woman,  while  it  is  perhaps  somewhat  the  con- 
trary with  regard  to  men.  Why  is  this?  Because  it 
is  most  certain  that  society  rests  upon  the  chastity 
of  its  women,  and  evinces  much  less  interest  in  the 
chastity  of  men,  or  rather,  it  is  more  concerned  over 
the  energy,  courage,  loyalty  and  honesty  of  the  men 


278  ON  READING   NIETZSCHE 

than  over  their  chastity.  It  is  quite  true  that  if  so- 
ciety wants  the  women  to  remain  chaste,  it  should,  in 
consequence,  demand  chastity  from  the  men  also, 
since  it  is  uncontestable  that  the  two  are  connected. 
To  be  sure ;  yet  also,  because  of  this  very  connection, 
if  society  were  sure  of  the  chastity  of  women,  it 
would  be  sure  also  of  that  of  the  men.  For  this  very 
reason,  knowing  man  to  be  naturally  polygamous, 
and  being  interested  in  man  not  practicing  polygamy, 
knowing  woman  to  be  at  least  much  more  monogam- 
ous than  man,  it  is  woman  upon  whom  society  relies 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  general  chastity  as  much 
as  it  is  possible  to  maintain  it.  Because  society  relies 
mostly  on  woman,  and  this  with  some  reason,  it 
endows  feminine  chastity  with  an  extreme  value. 
With  ardor  and  authority  it  urges  woman  to  pre- 
serve chastity.  It  makes  a  superior  and  essential 
virtue  of  chastity  for  woman  and  a  duty  of  the 
first  order.  That  is  reasonable  enough.  Mean- 
while society  institutes  a  morality  special  to  women 
and  very  different  from  that  imposed  upon  men. 

Mankind  admits,  therefore,  diverse  moralities, 
the  severeness  and  indulgence  of  which  compensate 
each  other. 

There  we  have  the  truth  at  the  bottom  of 
Nietzsche's  theories  or,  at  least,  there  we  find  that 
part  of  his  ideas  which  is  in  agreement  with  the 
consensus  communis  of  humanity  such  as,  rightly 
or  wrongly.  It  has  persisted  to  this  day. 

But  this  is  nothing  like  the  conception  of  the  two 
moralities;  nothing  even  is  more  contrary  to  it. 
[The  conception  of  two  moralities  arbitrarily  divides 


CONCLUSION  279 

mankind  into  two  classes,  while  there  are  of  course, 
not  two  kinds,  but  a  hundred  degrees.  The  con- 
ception of  the  two  moralities  is  not  exactly  com- 
pensating. True,  it  exacts  more  from  the  great 
ones  and  allows  them  more;  it  exacts  less  from  the 
small  and  allows  them  less ;  but  in  creating  a  sharp 
abyss  between  great  and  small,  it  paralyzes  the  good 
force  that  might  exist  in  a  certain  degree  among  the 
small,  and  allows  useful  strength  only  in  the  great 
men  of  whom  it  is  not  sure  and  to  whom  too  much 
license  is  granted. 

I  have  been  very  careful  not  to  state  that  the 
general  idea  admitted  by  mankind  is  true,  but  it  is 
at  least  fairer.  It  says  and  believes  that  "  there  is 
a  general  and  universal  morality.  All  of  you  must 
abide  by  it.  Nevertheless,  those  who  will  do  much 
more  than  their  duty  on  one  side  will  be  tacitly 
allowed  to  do  a  little  less  than  their  duty  on  the 
other.^     Those  who  do  but  their  duty  to  the  letter 

1  It  is  difficult  to  follow  Faguet  upon  this  ground.    The 

notion    of    mankind    or    society    allowing    anything    seems 

preposterous  when  one  remembers  the  long  list  of  names 

of  great  men,  whose  work  the  whole  world  is  ever  pleased 

to  enjoy,  who  were  allowed  no  sympathy  or  support  or 

indulgence  or  even  the  possibility  of  enjoying  life,  from 

Socrates    to    Dante    and     Shelley,    from    Archimedes    to 

Copernicus,     from     Dr.     John     Dee     to     Turpin,     from 

Coriolanus    to    Sir    Charles    Dilke,    without    counting    the 

numberless   lights   of   the    English    literature   who   had  to 

witness    the    fulsome    and    absurd    praise    showered    upon 

unworthy    rivals    and    whose    every    lapse    was    eagerly 

awaited    and    pounced    upon   by    the   public.     The    greater 

the   real    lasting   services   as  a   rule   the   less   has  a  great 

man    been    allowed    by    his    contemporaries.     There    have 


28o  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

must  not  expect  to  find  people  blind  to  their  weak- 
nesses. There  are  privileges  in  the  domain  of  mor- 
ality. There  are  privileges  but  they  are  distributed 
in  such  a  way  that  they  balance  each  other  and  that, 
after  all,  every  one  enjoys  some  of  them.  There 
is  a  mass  of  different  applications  of  the  moral  law 
according  to  the  degree  of  power  for  good  which 
each  man  possesses,  and  with  compensations  so  that 
no  one  suffer  too  much  or  be  too  much  deluded." 

This  has  truly  been  humanity's  moral  law  so  far. 
It  is  an  elastic  morality.  At  heart,  I  verily  believe 
that  it  is  an  error  and  that  the  superior  man  merely 
has  more  duties  than  the  others,  without  compensa- 
tion, unless  it  be — and  an  immense  one  it  is — that 
he  can  tell  himself,  with  a  deep  gratification  of  his 

been  very  few  men  whose  names  were  blessed  200  years 
after  their  death  who  would  have  given  any  care  for 
public  morality  when  it  came  to  a  matter  of  tliat  which 
made  them  great.  Again  there  is  proof  every  day  that 
it  is  not  the  breaking  of  its  mortal  laws  that  society 
minds  in  a  man  but  the  flouting  of  these  breaks.  There 
are  moral  immoral  men  and  women  all  around  us  and 
also  immoral  moral  men.  The  greater  men  are  child-like 
and  do  not  attempt  to  cover  their  tracks.  Therein  lies 
their  offence  to  society.  It  were  absurd  to  seek  in  this 
remark  a  criticism  of  society's  view  on  sexual  problems. 
The  matter  is  a  very  much  wider  one.  Why  was  Napoleon 
not  allowed  to  complete  his  task,  for  instance,  the  unifi- 
cation of  Europe?  Or  Joan  of  Arc?  A  great  man  is 
great  because  he  cannot  help  being  great;  an  inventor 
cannot  help  inventing  nor  a  poet  avoid  singing.  What 
has  Society  got  to  do  with  them  except  to  fuss  over  their 
rivals  and  go  a  muckraking  into  their  private  lives? 
Faguet's  remark  may  be  true  of  Latin  or  Slav  nations;  I 
doubt  if  it  applies  to  any  other. —  (Translator's  Note.) 


CONCLUSION  281 

pride,  that  he  has  more  duties  than  the  others  with- 
out compensation.  Such,  however,  is  the  moraUty 
of  mankind.     It  is  an  elastic  morality. 

That  of  Xietzsche  is  rigid  and  arbitrarily  so.  Be- 
tween great  and  small  men,  which  it  would  be  very 
much  put  to  if  it  had  to  classify  and  define  them,  it 
digs  a  profound  chasm.  For  those  on  the  right  it 
establishes  a  strict  morality,  and  for  those  on  the  left 
it  sets  up  a  morality  that  is  also  strict  and  rigorous, 
with  appearance  of  immorality.  It  rests  entirely 
upon  a  fancy  of  the  imagination,  and  has  no  solid 
foundation,  either  in  the  psychology  of  men  or  in 
that  of  nations.  It  is  hardly  more  than  a  poet's  bril- 
liant revery. 

I  much  prefer  what  Nietzsche  said  of  the  en- 
croachments of  morality  and  of  the  legitimate  limits 
within  which  it  is  as  necessary  to  confine  it  as  it  is  to 
confine  any  other  thing.  That  is  true  and  that  is 
right  in  its  consequences.  Morality  has  always 
had  or  at  least  has  had,  for  a  very  long  spell  —  since 
Socrates  if  you  like  —  the  pretension  to  gather  to 
itself  as  the  ultimate,  or  rather  as  being  the 
only  end,  all  human  actions  and  even  all  human 
occupations.  That  "  Philosophers'  Circe  "  has  been 
and  has  wanted  to  be  a  Circe  to  all  men,  for  their 
own  good.  It  has  implanted  in  mankind  the  idea 
that  it  alone  is  respectable,  that  it  alone  is  a  "  value," 
and  that  all  the  other  values  are  valuable  only  as  a 
function  of  morality,  and  so  long  only  as  they  con- 
tribute towards  its  establishment  or  the  confirma- 
tion of  its  empire. 


282  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

This  is  really  excessive,  and  truly  an  error.  To 
enslave  to  itself  savant,  artist  and  politician  is,  on 
the  part  of  morality,  an  encroachment,  bad  in  itself 
and  one  which,  like  all  other  encroachments, 
ends  by  turning  against  the  one  that  makes  them. 
To  tell  the  savant,  "  Science  must  only  serve  to  the 
establishment  of  a  rational  morality  and  to  the  in- 
crease of  men's  morality " — to  tell  the  artist, 
"  Art  must  serve  only  to  making  men  more  moral." 
To  tell  the  Statesman ;  "  Politics  are  morality  and 
nothing  but  morality." —  That  is  to  paralyze  human 
forces  that  have  a  right  to  existence  and  that  have 
their  own  independent  utiHty;  it  is  to  steriHze  and 
freeze  the  savant,  the  artist  and  the  politician. 

The  savant  will  ever  be  saying  to  himself :  "  Is 
this  truth  virtuous ;  is  not  that  truth  a  demoralizing 
one  ?  " —  and  he  will  no  longer  seek  the  truth. 

The  artist  will  be  telling  himself :  "  Is  not  such 
an  art  immoral?  Art  itself,  as  Tolstoy  said,  is  it 
not  immoral  in  itself?  "  And  he  will  think  that  his 
duty  consists  in  reducing  art,  as  Tolstoy  wished  it 
to  be  reduced,  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin. 

The  Statesman  will  always  be  asking  himself, 
"  Do  I  stand  within  strict  morality  ?  Must  I  take 
life,  have  I  a  right  to  take  life  when  it  has  been  said ; 
*  Thou  shalt  not  kill '  ?  Must  I  punish,  since  it  has 
been  said;  'Thou  shalt  not  judge  others';  and 
since,  even  according  to  the  simple  morality  of  com- 
mon-sense, it  is  obvious  that  to  assume  the  right  to 
judge  others  when  one  is  fallible,  amounts  to  an 
enormity  ?  " 

And  so  on.    The  enslaving  of  the  quest  of  truth 


CONCLUSION  283 

to  morality,  the  enslaving  of  the  quest  of  the  beauti- 
ful to  morality;  the  enslaving  of  the  quest  of  the 
public  good  to  morality,  are  all  suppressions  of  the 
quest  of  the  beautiful,  of  the  quest  of  truth  and  of 
the  quest  of  the  public  good.  The  absolute  and 
superstitious  enslaving  of  humanity  to  morality  — 
for  morality  has  its  superstitions  like  religion,  from 
which  it  differs  but  little  —  would  cut  short  the  very 
life  of  humanity. 

All  this  comes  back  to  saying  that,  there  also,  are 
particular  moralities :  a  morality  particular  to  art, 
one  to  science  and  one  to  politics.  These  divers 
efforts  of  mankind  bear  some  relations  to  morality 
but  are  not  its  dependents.  They  are  indirectly  re- 
lated to  morality  but  not  as  its  servants  or  agents. 
They  do  not  have  to  be  moral ;  they  do  not  have  to 
be  immoral.  The  savant  is  guilty  when  he  sets 
out  to  discover  alleged  truths  to  demoralize  his 
fellow  men.  The  artist  is  guilty  when  he  causes 
art  to  be  used  towards  corrupting  men.  Politicians 
are  guilty,  if  under  the  guise  of  the  public  good,  they 
commit  immoral  acts  which  have  not  the  public  good 
as  an  aim,  but  merely  their  own  or  that  of  their 
party. 

The  morality  of  the  savant,  the  artist  or  the  poli- 
tician, as  a  savant,  an  artist  and  a  politician,  consists 
in  not  being  immoral  but  it  does  not  consist  in  enter- 
ing the  service  of  morality  and  producing  morality 
in  the  world.  If  they  succeed  in  doing  that,  as 
moreover  often  happens,  all  the  better,  but  they  do 
not  have  to  seek  it.  The  word  of  Goethe  is  true: 
"  I  never  bothered  myself  with  the  effects  of  my 


284  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

works  of  art.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  they  have 
been  rather  useful,  but  it  was  not  from  that  point  of 
view  that  I  had  to  set  out."  The  artist  creates 
something  beautiful,  the  savant  discovers  something 
true,  and  the  politician  does  something  for  the  pub- 
lic good.  It  is  likely,  although  I  do  not  know  it  but 
merely  believe  it,  that  all  this,  in  the  long  run,  bene- 
fits morality;  but  it  is  not  in  itself  morality.  If 
they  wanted  their  work  to  be  a  piece  of  morality  the 
artist,  the  savant  and  the  politician  would  paralyze, 
sterilize  and  freeze  themselves,  and  their  work 
would  be  worthless.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they 
were  possessed  with  the  contrary  idea  and  allowed 
themselves  to  be  prompted  by  a  secret  and  intimate 
immorality  —  and  here  we  have  identity  of  the  con- 
tradictories —  they  would  also  be  doing  ignoble  and 
pitiful  work.  Not  the  artist,  the  savant,  nor  the 
statesman  is  the  servant  of  morality.  They  serve 
beauty,  truth  and  the  public  good.  If  that  also  leads 
to  morality  it  is  not  part  of  their  intention. 

But  morality  will  not  have  it  thus.  It  wants  to 
find  in  all  men  servants  ad  niitum  and  pretends  to 
give  to  all  human  actions  a  value  proportionate  to 
the  place  which  it  occupies  therein.  In  other  words, 
morality  pretends  to  be  the  only  value.  There  lies 
its  error  and  it  is  this  error  with  which  Nietzsche  re- 
proaches morality  furiously  but  rightly. 

As  I  said,  morality  hurts  its  own  cause  through 
these  encroachments  because,  in  the  end,  people  turn 
against  it.  That  is  what  happened  to  Nietzsche, 
who  lost  patience  and  finally  said ;  "  We  do  not 
want  this  tyrant  any  more  ";  and  he  wanted  to  sup- 


CONCLUSION  285 

press  morality  itself,  and  the  whole  of  it,  too.  And 
if,  in  the  matter  of  talent,  there  is  but  one  Nietzsche, 
there  are  many  under-Xietzsches  who  do  not  admit 
this  universal  despotism  of  morality,  who  challenge 
it  and  integrally  eliminate  it.  If  you  want  to  be 
everything,  there  is  always  the  danger  for  you  that 
your  wish  will  be  contested,  and  that  you  will  be 
denied  even  the  right  to  be  anything  at  all. 

The  matter  is  —  it  is  not  a  reproach  —  that  mor- 
ality becomes  a  passion  with  civilized  people  and 
assumes  the  whole  character,  and  I  would  say,  almost 
the  tyrannical  temperament  of  a  passion.  Mo- 
rality was  with  primitive  peoples  very  likely  nothing 
more  than  the  deeply  felt  necessity  to  sacrifice  per- 
sonal interest  to  common  interest.  That  was  a  right 
idea,  then  a  sentiment,  then  a  passion.  The  idea 
of  necessity  became  an  idea  of  obligation.  Man  felt 
himself  compelled.  All  men  felt  themselves  com- 
pelled. Hence  an  intimate  union  between  religion 
and  morality,  whether  it  be  morality  that  derives 
from  religion  or  religion  that  derives  from  moral- 
ity. Little  by  little,  while  doing  his  duty,  man  felt 
himself  compelled  to  do  something  which  had  no 
longer  a  very  precise  object,  since  the  necessities 
of  the  daily  defense  and  the  daily  sacrifice  were 
less  present  and  less  obvious.  He  took  to  wor- 
shiping that  something  which  commanded  without 
giving  its  reasons,  and  which  said  ;  "  Thou  shalt : 
thou  must."  lie  worshiped  it  respectfully  and 
superstitiously,  either  as  a  commandment  from  some 
mysterious  being  above  or  as  a  commandment  from 
some  mysterious  voice   within  himself.     And  that 


286  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

was  the  mystical  foundation  of  morality.  As  soon 
as  morality  had  a  mystical  foundation,  it  became  a 
passion,  and  that  with  extraordinary  energy,  because 
man  is  only  moved  by  the  mysterious  and  is  only 
devoted  with  ardor  and  fanaticism  to  the  things 
that  he  does  not  understand. 

Hence  that  religious  character  of  morality  which 
causes  morality,  which  has  the  result  that  morality, 
if  it  survives  religion,  becomes  itself  a  religion  and 
inspires  true  religious  passions  in  those  that  love  it. 

Add  to  this,  to  keep  this  passion  indefinitely  burn- 
ing in  the  heart  of  man  —  and  far  from  me  to  com- 
plain of  it  —  add  this  motive,  which  is  eternal.  Man 
was  at  first  an  animal  for  whom  the  struggle  against 
wild  beasts  and  men  was  a  daily  necessity.  Man  is 
therefore  born  bellicose,  or  if  you  like — I  do  not 
want  to  argue  over  it — he  has  been  disposed  and 
trained  for  fighting  by  thousands  of  prehistoric 
centuries.  This  character  he  has  retained.  Once 
the  civilizations  became  firmly  established,  man  lost 
the  need  to  fight  every  day,  either  wild  beasts  or 
men,  but  he  has  preserved  the  taste  for  fighting ;  and 
he  has  every  day  some  occasion  to  exercise  it.  He 
has  his  passions,  which  are  his  inner  beasts,  and  he 
feels  and  shall  feel  every  day  the  need  to  fight  those 
beasts.  Therefore,  man  will  effectively  fight  every 
day  against  himself.  He  finds,  in  conquering  him- 
self, as  much  pleasure  as  his  distant  ancestor  felt 
in  downing  a  bear.  And  it  is  the  most  lively,  pro- 
found and  intense  pleasure  that  man  can  yet  devise. 

Along  this  path  also  did  morality  become  a  pas- 
sion.    It    is    a    passion    against    the    passions.     It 


CONCLUSION  287 

amounts  to  the  same  thing,  whether  it  is  a  matter  of 
annihilating  them  as  being  diseases  and  good  for 
nothing  at  all,  which  is  the  opinion  of  some  people 
and  my  own,  or  whether  a  matter  of  regulating, 
disciplining,  directing,  damming,  canalizing  and  pur- 
ifying them, —  so  long  as  it  is  a  matter  of  fighting 
them.  In  his  quality  of  fighting  animal,  man  there- 
fore worships  the  passion  against  the  passions,  the 
passion  against  himself,  the  cgophobe  passion,  which 
affords  him  such  delectable  victories  and  such  an 
exquisite  loot  —  the  loot  of  himself.  At  the  root  of 
the  victories  of  that  passion,  it  is  of  course  well  un- 
derstood, he  finds  again  a  marvelous  sweetness  of 
egotism,  a  transcendental  triumph  of  the  self  since 
it  is  a  triumph  of  the  pure  self  over  the  self. 

By  all  the  roads,  therefore,  morality  becomes  a 
passion.  In  it,  man  venerates  what  in  its  principle 
and  at  the  beginning  of  things  most  truly  created 
civilization  and  humanity.  It  is  perfectly  correct 
that  if  man  had  been  merely  a  passionate  egotist  hu- 
manity would  have  disappeared  a  very  short  time 
after  its  birth.  He  worships,  in  morality,  something 
mysterious  —  something  that  has  become  mysterious 
—  something  that  commands  without  giving  its 
reasons,  like  a  god,  and  either  he  confounds  it  with 
religion  and  absorbs  it  therein,  or  when  he  makes  a 
distinction  between  them,  he  promotes  morality  itself 
to  the  dignity  and  the  mysterious  majesty  of  a  re- 
ligion. Finally,  he  worships  in  it  a  form  of  his 
fighting  instinct,  of  which  he  feels  the  need,  and  of 
which  he  feels  that  he  will  always  be  in  need,  and 
the  victories  and  triumphs  of  which  afford  him  the 


288  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

most  profoundly  voluptuous  and  exquisite  satisfac- 
tion. 

What  is  there  surprising  now  in  the  fact  that  mo- 
rality has  in  the  eyes  of  man  as  great  an  importance 
as  anything  else?  Did  art,  did  science  or  politics 
make  the  civilizations,  did  they  make  humanity? 
They  have  contributed  thereto  but  they  did  not  make 
it.  Do  science,  art  and  politics  command  with  a 
sort  of  sacred  authority,  and  do  they  compel?  Is 
there  a  voice  in  the  innermost  part  of  our  being  that 
tells  us ;  "  Thou  shalt  seek  knowledge,  thou  shalt 
write  poetry,  thou  shalt  be  a  statesman  "  ?  There  is 
not,  or  if  something  says  that  to  us,  it  is  precisely 
morality,  or  anything  else  but  speaking  through 
morality's  voice,  saying:  "Thou  shalt  know  in  or- 
der to  enlighten  men  upon  the  truths  and  to  make 
them  happier ;  thou  shalt  be  an  artist  in  order  to  link 
men  by  means  of  disinterested  enjoyment  and  ren- 
der them  through  this  concord  happier;  thou  shalt 
devote  thyself  to  the  State  to  ensure  the  happiness 
of  thy  fellow-citizens." 

Neither  science,  nor  art,  nor  politics  has,  in  itself, 
this  voice  of  commandment  and  this  imperative  ac- 
cept. Whether  or  not  morality  has  this  character  of 
high  authority  only  because  it  took  it  by  encroach- 
ments and  usurpation,  the  fact  is  that  it  has  had  that 
character  for  a  very  long  time,  and  with  a  sort  of  in- 
fallibility that  has  almost  passed  into  our  very  na- 
ture. It  is  only  to  the  words ;  "  Thou  shalt  be  an 
honest  man  "  that  we  find  no  retort,  but  the  words, 
"  thou  shalt  be  a  great  man  "  move  us  to  laughter, 


CONCLUSION  289 

and  without  our  feeling  the  sHghtest  remorse  for 
our  merriment. 

Do  science,  art  or  pohtics,  in  fine,  no  matter  what 
pleasures  they  give  us,  and  how  great,  afford  us  an 
enjoyment  that  can  be  compared  to  the  unalloyed 
and  absolute  joy  that  brings  us  out  of  ourselves 
and  above  ourselves,  the  joy  we  relish  when  we  con- 
quer ourselves?     Of  course  not. 

Man  has  therefore  concluded  that  morality  was 
his  king  and  he  turned  it  into  an  idol.  He  was  at 
bottom  not  wrong.  But  like  any  other  passion,  the 
passion  of  morality  itself  has  its  dangers.  To  mo- 
rality itself  must  we  still  give  its  share,  making  that 
share  the  larger  and  more  beautiful  one.  That  is 
what  Nietzsche  said,  and  had  he  said  nothing  but 
that  it  would  be  necessary  to  give  him  the  most  seri- 
ous approval. 

His  political  ideas,  which  are  very  closely  related 
to  his  ideas  on  morality,  are  most  worthy  of  discus- 
sion, but  also  very  much  open  to  discussion.  His 
unbounded  aristocratism  does  not  displease  one  any 
more  than  does  that  of  Renan.  Like  Nietzsche,  like 
Renan,  like  Plato  and  so  many  others,  I  am  thor- 
oughly convinced  that  everything  great  and  good 
ever  done  by  humanity  is  the  work  of  an  aristocracy. 
I  think  however  that  the  question  is  wrongly  set 
forth  by  Nietzsche  and  also  by  a  few  others ;  but  let 
us  confine  outselves  to  Nietzsche. 

This  is  how  Nietzsche  understands  aristocracy:  a 
cultivated  caste,  hereditarily  energetic,  having  culti- 


290  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

vated  in  itself  and  still  cultivating  energy.  It  con- 
ceives and  executes,  by  itself,  very  fine  things.  It 
conceives  and  executes,  by  itself,  and  constrains  the 
lower  caste  to  help  it,  great  things:  conquests,  ex- 
plorations, colonies,  new  cities  and  empires  founded, 
etc.  Under  that  caste  there  is  a  vile  caste  which 
loves  neither  the  artistic  life  nor  the  dangerous  life, 
which  is  allowed  to  understand  of  art  nothing  at 
all,  or  to  have  for  itself  a  pitiful  and  ridiculous  art, 
and  which  is  allowed  to  understand  of  life  danger- 
ous nothing  at  all,  but  which  is  associated  with  that 
life  by  means  of  force.  Some  societies  have  lived 
thus;  they  have  been  the  greatest  of  humanity  and 
they  have  caused  humanity  to  advance :  Athens,  the 
Greece  of  Alexander,  Rome,  and  the  France  of 
Louis  XIV.     They  are  the  models. 

I  hold  this  idea  to  be  utterly  false.  The  great 
and  beautiful  human  societies  were  headed  by  an 
aristocracy,  that  is  true,  but  they  had  an  inferior 
caste  which  was  not  at  all  vile  and  which  was  as 
aristocratic  and  more  aristocratic  than  their  aristoc- 
racy. They  were  aristocratic  from  top  to  bottom 
or  very  nearly,  and  had  an  inferior  caste  been  vile 
and  had  a  society  failed  to  be  aristocratic  from  top 
to  bottom,  those  societies  would  not  have  been  in 
the  least  great. 

Athens  was  great,  I  grant  that  it  was  so  because 
governed  by  its  aristocracy,  but  it  was  governed  by 
the  aristocracy  only  in  so  far  as  the  mass  was 
enough  aristocratic  itself  to  want  to  be  governed 
aristocratically  and  intimately  to  associate  itself  to 
its  aristocracy  in  an  essentially  aristocratic  thought. 


CONCLUSION  291 

Otherwise  I  would  like  to  know  what  the  aristocracy 
could  have  accomplished.  It  would  have  erected 
statues.  It  would  have  neither  made  conquests  nor 
achieved  hegemony  nor  the  Archa'e.  When  the  city 
fell  it  was  because  the  people  ceased  to  be  aristo- 
cratic and  left  its  aristocracy  alone  ;  it  was  when  the 
people  said :  "  to  be  governed  by  Philip  or  by  a 
distinguished  Athenian  it  is  all  the  same  to  me."  At 
that  time  the  plebe  did  not  care  about  its  aristoc- 
racy, about  the  aristocratic  constitution  of  the  city 
of  Athens.  It  was  willing  to  serve  anybody.  It 
was  willing  no  longer  to  draw  from  its  own  folds  a 
government  of  its  own  race  and  tradition ;  it  was  no 
longer  aristocratic  and  productive  of  aristocracy. 
That  is  what  it  had  ceased  to  be. 

The  same  reasoning  or  rather  a  similar  establish- 
ment of  facts  would  exactly  apply  to  Rome.  The 
Roman  plebe  discussed  and  was  in  dispute  with  its 
aristocracy.  To  be  sure,  but  until  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Empire  it  remained  attached  to  its  aris- 
tocracy since  it  did  not  overthrow  it.  That  is  such 
an  easy  task  for  a  plebe  since  it  consists  merely  in 
denying  support.  The  plebe  remained  attached  to 
the  aristocracy  and  to  all  aristocratic  conceptions,  to 
all  the  dreams  of  conquest  and  greatness,  and  to  the 
dangerous  life  of  its  aristocracy.  Like  Napoleon's 
grenadiers  they  were  "  always  grumbling  but  always 
marching  "  for  no  great  national  profit,  for  no  per- 
sonal profit  at  all,  for  almost  none,  which  is  an  es- 
sentially aristocratic  feature.  When  they  accepted 
the  Empire,  when  they  gave  up  the  Senate,  it  was 
because   the   aristocratic   sentiment   had    weakened 


292  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

among  them.  It  was  because  it  had  become  a  mat- 
ter of  indifference  with  them  to  be  governed,  no 
longer  by  an  aristocracy  that  emanated  from  them, 
sprung  from  the  soil  and  bound  together  with  the 
old  roots  of  the  race  and  representing  the  slow  and 
regular  ascent  of  the  best  that  was  in  plebe  towards 
the  superior  spheres;  but  by  chance  sovereigns, 
come  from  the  four  corners  of  the  world,  Ligurians, 
Spaniards,  Africans,  Syrians,  Dalmatians  and 
Arabs,  who  had  nothing  of  the  Roman,  who  cared 
not  a  whit  for  Roman  history,  who  did  not  represent 
anything  but  success  in  warfare  and  were  but  the 
chosen  ones  of  a  few  mutinied  soldiers.  End  of  a 
race;  mentality  of  a  race  which  is  no  longer  con- 
scious of  itself,  which  knows  no  longer  how  to  make 
itself  ruled  by  the  best  of  itself  approximately  se- 
lected, either  by  birth  which  is  not  at  all  a  hazard  or 
by  election,  or  by  a  combination  of  election  and 
birth;  mentality  of  a  race  in  short  which  has  lost 
the  aristocratic  sense. 

And  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV  —  what  was  it?  It 
shows  us  an  absolute  monarch,  a  military  aristoc- 
racy, an  administrative  bourgeoisie,  a  people  devoted 
to  its  king  and  its  aristocracy,  and  consequently 
essentially  aristocratic.  This  people  does  not  vote 
nor  elect ;  it  does  not  govern  itself,  neither  by 
plebiscites  nor  by  means  of  a  representation.  But 
it  collaborates,  and  actively  to  be  sure,  with  the  aris- 
tocratic government  in  this,  that  it  obeys  that  gov- 
ernment with  ardor,  dash  and  passion.  What  did 
it  want  when  it  fought  as  it  did,  when  it  worked  as 
it  did?    It  wanted  the  King  to  be  great,  the  Prince 


CONCLUSION  293 

of  Conde  to  be  victorious,  the  Marechal  de  Turenne 
to  be  marechal,  and  tliat  \'ersailles  be  an  enchant- 
ment. It  wanted  that,  since  it  served  so  well 
and  with  enthusiasm.  It  had  no  means  better  to 
show  its  will.  If  it  did  not  want  that  most  pre- 
cisely it  could  by  means  of  a  simple  force  of  inertia 
or  of  drowsiness  have  it  that  none  of  these  things 
come  to  pass.  It  would  let  France  be  conquered 
by  Spaniard.  German  or  Englishman,  saying 
"  How  can  this  matter  to  me  ?  "  An  aristocratic 
nation,  it  is  a  nation  in  which  the  aristocracy  and 
the  people  are  both  equally  aristocratic. 

And  not  equally  aristocratic  either,  but  rather  the 
people  much  more  aristocratic  than  the  aristocracy 
itself.  Because  in  the  aristocrat,  aristocratism  may 
be  but  a  matter  of  interest,  but  in  the  people,  it  has 
to  be  a  passionate  affair.  What  has  the  aristocrat 
to  gain  by  an  aristocratic  constitution,  an  aristo- 
cratic regime,  by  an  aristocratic  life  and  by  a  bril- 
liant and  dangerous  life?  \^ery  much:  riches,  hon- 
ors, glory  and  satisfied  pride.  What  does  the  ple- 
beian stand  to  gain  ?  Nothing  at  all.  "ATany  blows, 
little  pleasure  and  death  at  every  comer."  In  order 
to  be  aristocratic  the  people  must  have  the  aristo- 
cratic passion.  Strange  ways  of  passion  but  which 
do  not  surprise  the  psychologist,  it  is  necessary  that 
the  plebeian  should  enjoy  his  aristocratic  sense  in 
the  success  of  others,  that  he  be  happy  of  Conde's 
victories  and  of  the  triumphs  of  Turenne.  that  he 
be  made  happy  by  the  glorious  life  in  which  he  does 
not  participate  unless  it  be  by  his  sufferings  and  of 
which  he  has  but  the  labors  and  the  pain.     It  is 


294  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

necessary  that  he  should  proudly  exclaim  when  he 
sees  the  fine  carriages  passing  before  him,  these 
words  heard  by  Taine :  "  How  rich  are  our  lords !  " 
To  be  in  this  frame  of  mind  it  is  necessary  that  he 
should  be  a  hundred  times  more  aristocratic  than 
the  aristocrats  themselves.  An  aristocratic  nation 
is  a  nation  in  which  the  aristocracy  is  aristocratic 
but  the  plebe  even  much  more  so. 

—  But  this  is  a  sophism !  You  are  mixing  aris- 
tocratism  and  patriotism. 

—  Nothing  of  the  kind.  They  are  mixing  them- 
selves. Aristocratism  is  a  form  of  patriotism  and 
nothing  else.  If  you  like,  aristocratism  is  a  form 
of  the  instinct  of  hierarchy  and  the  instinct  of  hier- 
archy is  patriotism  itself.  A  people  has  the  hierar- 
chic sentiment  so  long  as  it  considers  itself  as  a 
camp.  So  long  as  it  considers  itself  as  an  army  in 
a  fortified  camp  it  understands  or  it  feels  (and  so 
far  as  the  result  is  concerned  it  is  one  and  the  same 
thing,  to  feel  is  even  much  stronger  than  to  under- 
stand it)  that  the  only  means  to  grow  or  even  to  sub- 
sist is  to  maintain  with  energy  the  hierarchy,  that  is 
to  say  the  national  frame  and  the  national  organism. 
Hence  the  energetic  tendency  strongly  to  gather 
around  chiefs  who  are  designated  by  birth,  which  is 
not  at  all  a  hazard,  or  by  election  with  aristocratic 
instinct,  that  is  to  say,  one  which  always  seeks  the 
chiefs  in  the  higher  class.  Rome  was  for  a  long 
time  most  remarkable  in  this  connection.  When  the 
aristocratic  sentiment  weakens,  patriotism  weakens 
also.  Rather  it  is  because  patriotism  has  weakened 
that  the  aristocratic  sentiment  is  lowering.     Or  bet- 


CONCLUSION  295 

ter  still,  these  two  tendencies  which  are  but  different 
forms  of  the  same  sentiment  always  go  on  a  par 
and  keep  more  or  less  to  the  same  pace. 

An  example  against  my  own  view :  the  ardent  pa- 
triotism of  the  1792  "patriots"  who  were  ardent 
equalitarians.  Think  a  while  and  you  will  see  this. 
Outside  a  motive  of  fact  which  is  that  those  men 
wished  to  repel  "  the  kings  "  whom  they  suspected 
of  wishing  to  bring  back  over  them  masters  of 
whom  they  intended  to  remain  rid  of,  there  was  a 
sentimental  reason.  The  patriots  of  1792  intended 
to  replace  the  masters  whom  they  were  dismissing, 
to  prove,  and  to  prove  to  themselves,  that  they  also 
could  fill  the  office  of  masters,  and  to  do  it  better 
than  the  former  ones.  They  wished  to  show,  in 
dazzling  manner,  that  the  people  of  France  knew 
how  spontaneously  to  extract  from  its  own  midst  an 
hierarchy  as  good  as  the  one  it  had  destroyed.  This 
sentiment  is  natural  to  the  man  tvho  replaces  an- 
other, to  the  new  owner  of  an  historical  castle,  to 
the  newly  made  noble  man  or  to  the  atheist  whose 
virtue  sometimes  rivals  that  of  the  believer.  It  is 
a  sentiment  however  which  does  not  last.  Once  the 
democracy  is  installed  and  sure  of  its  own  positions 
it  loses  the  memory  of  what  it  has  replaced,  be- 
comes, quite  naturally,  as  indifferent  to  the  patriotic 
idea  as  it  is  hostile  to  the  aristocratic  idea,  and  does 
not  see  the  necessity  for  defending  a  country  in 
which  it  would  remain  what  it  is,  whether  it  belongs 
to  that  democracy  or  to  some  one  else,  and  especially 
a  country  in  which  the  democracy  in  order  to  de- 
fend itself  to  reconstitute  an  heirarchy  which  would 


296  ON    READING   NIETZSCHE 

very  much  resemble  an  aristocracy,  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  would  be  one. 

The  patriotic  nations  are  therefore  always  aris- 
tocratic nations,  and  the  aristocratic  nations  are 
countries  where  the  aristocracy  is  aristocratic  but 
the  people  much  more  so. 

The  question  is  therefore  very  badly  set  forth  by 
Nietzsche.  We  should  not  say  that  everything  that 
was  good  and  great  in  humanity  has  been  accom- 
plished by  aristocracies.  We  should  say  everything 
that  was  good  and  great  in  humanity  has  been  ac- 
complished by  nations,  by  nations  and  not  by  frac- 
tions of  nations,  which  were  aristocratic  from  top 
to  bottom. 

Thus  vanishes  here  also,  in  politics  as  in  morality, 
this  fundamental  distinction,  this  rigid  and  strict 
distinction  between  those  at  the  top  and  those  at  the 
bottom.  Thus  vanishes  Nietzsche's  aristocratic  sys- 
tem. To  borrow  one  of  his  own  procedures  and 
imitate  for  once  his  customary  way,  I  will  say  this : 
Let  us  blot  out  words  of  Aristocracy  and  of  De- 
mocracy. Beyond  aristocracy  and  democracy  there 
exists  something  which  is,  if  you  like,  Sociocracy. 
There  are  nations  that  have  a  very  strong  social 
instinct.  With  these  peoples  individualism  is  very 
weak  and  individual  egotism  much  inclined  to  self- 
sacrifice  and  reduced  to  a  sort  of  minimum.  The 
citizen  loves  to  do  great  common  things,  to  do  great 
things  by  means  of  association.  According  to  the 
different  ethical  temperaments,  or  rather  according 
to  the  times  he  does  those  great  common  things  by 
uniting  strongly  with  the  State,  by  absorbing  itself 


CONCLUSION  297 

in  the  State ;  or  he  does  them  by  forming  corpora- 
tions or  associations  of  citizens,  all  of  them  moreover 
deeply  and  passionately  attached  to  the  State  and 
becoming  the  firm  limbs  and  the  strong  and  *'  well- 
geared  "  bones  of  the  State.  In  one  or  the  other 
way,  and  in  one  and  the  other  way  most  often,  these 
nations  practice  sociocracy.  They  have  the  sense  of 
association,  the  sense  of  the  State,  in  a  word  the 
social  sense  and  the  sense  of  the  people  strong. 
They  are  great  nations  and  they  do  great  things. 
They  conquer  others  or  disdain  to  conquer  them. 
They  are  the  makers  of  the  great  civilizations.  The 
others  are  the  excrements  of  humanity,  or  rather 
perhaps  they  are  the  mold  thereof,  and,  as  such,  they 
have  their  use,  but  that  is  not  important  to  the  man 
whose  study  is  civilization  and  the  history  of  civi- 
lization. 

In  short,  there  must  precisely  be  neither  aristoc- 
racy nor  democracy.  The  ideal  nation  is  that  in 
which  the  people  is  aristocratic  and  the  aristocracy 
demophile. 

That  was  not  the  way  in  which  Nietzsche  under- 
stood things.  Here  lay  Nietzsche's  capital  error,  an 
error  which  like  all  his  others,  either  contained  much 
truth  or  was  on  the  road  to  truth  but  which  never- 
theless it  was  necessary  to  straighten  out. 

Let  us  end  with  another  general  and  essential 
idea  of  Nietzsche.  This  I  should  call  his  idea  of 
dilettantism.  After  all  he  began  with  it  and  he 
ended  w  ith  it,  and  it  is  fitting  that,  with  it,  we  should 
close  our  study. 


298  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

If  Nietzsche  is  an  aristocrat,  if  Nietzsche  is  an  im- 
moralist,  and  if  Nietzsche  is  everything  that  he  is,  it 
is  because  he  is  an  artist.  It  is  because  the  pith  of 
his  thought  is  that  humanity  exists  in  order  to  create 
beauty.  Every  artist's  philosophy  depends  upon  his 
aesthetics.  That  of  Nietzsche  depends  absolutely  and 
altogether  upon  his  aesthetics.  He  began  by  saying 
all  that  we  have  seen  in  his  Origin  of  the  Greek 
Tragedy,  and  he  ended  by  saying  in  his  Will  to 
Power,  in  the  Chapter  of  the  Criticism  of  the  Supe- 
rior Values :  "  Is  it  desirable  to  create  conditions  in 
which  all  the  advantage  would  be  on  the  side  of  the 
'  just '  men  so  that  the  opposed  natures  and  instincts 
be  discouraged  and  slowly  perish?    This  is  after 

ALL  A  MATTER  OF  TASTE  AND  ESTHETICS.  Is  it  de- 
sirable from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view  that  the 
most  *  honorable,'  that  is  the  most  wearisome,  spe- 
cies of  men  should  subsist  alone,  the  square  people, 
the  virtuous  people,  the  straightforward  people,  the 
horned  animals  ?  .  .  .  Perhaps  it  were  the  contrary 
which  should  be  desired;  to  create  conditions  in 
which  the  *  just  man  *  should  be  lowered  to  the  hum- 
ble condition  of  useful  instrument,  of  ideal  herd- 
animal,  or  at  best  of  shepherd." 

It  is  a  matter  of  aesthetics.  Humanity  must  be 
led  by  aristocracies  which  are  not  much  weakened 
by  morality,  or  which  have  and  practice  a  particular 
morality  because  humanity  is  made  to  create  beauty. 

I  am  not  at  all  sure  of  it.  Humanity  does 
not  know  at  all  why  it  was  made  but  it  is  likely 
enough  that  it  was  meant  to  live  here  below  as  little 
badly  as  possible  in  order  to  increase  and  multiply, 


CONCLUSION  299 

to  subject  the  earth  to  itself  and  to  lead  thereon  a 
life  that  be  somewhat  bearable.  "  Go  forth,  live  on 
and  fill  the  earth  "  is  reasonable  enough  a  sentence. 
I  fail  to  see  what  there  is  that  could  very  neatly  indi- 
cate that  its  mission  is  to  do  things  that  are  meant 
to  "  ravish  with  ease  "  the  poets,  the  artists  and  the 
dilettantes,  "  res  frucndas  oculis."  Beauty  is  an  ad- 
mirable thing.  But  I  cannot  succeed  in  being  alto- 
gether persuaded  that  beauty  could  be  the  only 
thing  that  we  should  seek,  that  we  should  find  and 
that  we  should  realize  through  eflFort,  through  sor- 
row, through  tears  and  blood. 

Is  it  not,  as  seems  quite  natural  and  that  which  it 
were  foolish  to  evince  surprise,  is  it  not  that 
Nietzsche  felt  himself  in  the  same  error  or  in  the 
same  excess  as  the  moralists  in  their  own  way?  I 
have  made  him  say :  "  Morality  pretends  to  be  the 
only  legitimate  and  permissible  aim  of  human  activ- 
ity. Does  science  pretend  to  be  the  only  end  of 
human  activity?  Does  art  have  the  pretension  to 
be  the  only  end  of  human  activity?  They  would 
be  wrong  and  so  would  morality."  Well,  Nietzsche 
says  precisely  very  often  and  is  always  thinking 
that  art  should  be  considered  as  the  supreme  end  of 
humanity,  and  that  all  things  should  be  sacrificed  to 
it.  It  seems  to  me  that  his  error  is  here  as  great  at 
least  as  that  with  which  he  taxes  the  moralist  with 
so  much  harshness,  bitterness  and  haughtiness.  Art 
is  a  great  thing.  It  is  one  of  the  objects  to  which 
humanity  is  right  in  applying  itself  when  it  has 
nothing  else  to  do.  It  were  very  much  to  be  re- 
gretted   if    mankind    had    no    leisure    to    apply   to 


300  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

this  noble  exercise.  It  was  to  have  leisure  that 
could  be  devoted  to  art,  I  mean  to  make  or  to  en- 
joy art,  that  humanity  used  its  wits  to  diminish  by 
discoveries  and  inventions  the  amount  of  time  neces- 
sary to  secure  its  subsistence.  All  that  is  true.  But 
it  does  not  result  therefrom  that  every  human  action 
should  tend  towards  creating  beauty  and  that  every 
human  action  which  does  not  tend  to  that  be  despic- 
able, nor  that  every  human  thought  be  disgusting 
which  does  not  have  that  aim. 

Humanity  must  be  led  and  governed  by  an  elite; 
I  agree  perfectly.  But  it  is  not  my  opinion  that  it 
should  be  governed  and  roughly  enslaved  by  an 
elite  of  thinkers,  artists  and  energetic  men  —  those 
artists  in  action  —  because  those  men  create  beauty 
for  which  the  crowd  does  not  care  and  which  the 
crowd  only  creates  when  it  is  compelled  to  do  so. 
If  the  elite  does  not  set  itself  as  its  first  aim  to 
render  services  to  the  crowd,  to  make  it  more  intel- 
ligent, wiser,  saner,  and  finally  happier,  I  no  longer 
see  of  what  use  is  the  elite  and  whence  it  derives  its 
right.  That  the  elite  does  not  bring  about  the  hap- 
piness of  the  people  by  the  same  means  which  the 
people  would  choose,  very  well.  That  it  make  the 
people  clear  the  bush,  dry  up  swamps,  build  a  Ver- 
sailles, carry  on  defensive  warfare  or  even  wars  of 
conquests,  that  it  profit  either  of  the  force  it  has 
been  able  to  concentrate  in  itself  or  of  the  instinc- 
tive or  hereditary  confidence  that  the  people 
placed  in  it,  very  well.  It  is  precisely  the  mission 
of  an  elite  to  see  further,  to  foresee  and  to  know 
that  which  after  all,  at  the  cost  of  transitory  hard- 


CONCLUSION  301 

ships,  shall  make  for  the  greatness,  the  strength, 
the  security  and  withal  the  happiness  of  the  people. 
But  I  am  not  sufficiently  artist  to  believe  that  the 
end  is  worth  the  employment  of  those  means  if  the 
elite  were  to  fancy  itself  compelled  to  nothing  else 
but  to  the  creation  of  beauty  through  its  own  efforts 
and  those  of  the  people. 

Homer  has  said,  perhaps  without  knowing  very 
well  all  the  things  that  he  was  saying,  in  that  sen- 
tence :  "  The  gods  dispose  of  the  human  destinies 
and  decide  the  fall  of  men  in  order  that  the  future 
generations  could  make  songs."  Nietzsche  quotes 
that  somewhere  and  finds  it  appalling:  "Is  there 
anything  more  audacious,  more  frightful,  anything 
that  lights  up  the  human  destinies  like  a  winter 
sun  as  much  as  this  thought?  So,  we  suflfer  and  we 
perish  in  order  that  poets  should  not  be  lacking  in 
subjects!  And  it  is  the  gods  of  Homer  who  settle 
all  this  in  that  way  as  if  the  pleasures  of  some  fu- 
ture generations  seem  to  matter  very  much  to  them 
but  the  fate  of  us  contemporaries  were  altogether  a 
matter  of  indifference  to  them.  How  could  such 
ideas  enter  the  brains  of  a  Greek?  " 

—  But,  if  you  please,  this  idea  is  quite  Olympian, 
and  Dionysian  enough,  and  excellent,  made  for  the 
brain  of  Greeks  such  as  you  have  always  understood 
and  represented  them.  It  is  also  by  excellence  a 
Nietzschean  idea,  and  it  is  the  Nietzschean  idea 
itself.  At  the  cost  of  the  greatest  sufferings  hu- 
manity must  produce  beauty  and  be  an  admirable 
material  for  epic  poems.  This  is  what  we  find  if  we 
dig  into  Nietzsche;  and  if  one  does  not  find  that  in 


302  ON   READING   NIETZSCHE 

Nietzsche  one  finds  nothing  at  all  except  talent. 
That  is  the  thing,  which  albeit  very  Olympian,  fairly 
Dionysian,  Homeric  enough  and  perhaps  Greek, 
seems  very  contestable  to  me.  For  a  great  good 
much  suffering,  very  well.  But  an  immense  and 
perpetual  martyrdom  of  humanity  for  the  sake  of 
the  "  beauty  of  the  thing,"  not  at  all.  A  little  less 
beauty  and  a  little  more  happiness. 

This  Nietzsche  is,  to  say  the  least,  somewhat 
Neronian.  To  express  the  whole  of  my  thought  he 
is  quite  Neronian.  What  surprises  me  most  since 
Nietzsche  is  paradoxical,  shameless  and  somewhat 
cynical,  is  that  I  did  not  meet  in  his  books  an  eulogy 
of  Nero.  It  must  be  there  somewhere ;  my  attention 
must  have  been  at  fault.  Yes,  Nietzsche  is  Nero- 
nian, and  that  is  the  very  secret  of  his  influence 
upon  a  section,  to  tell  the  truth,  upon  the  most  gro- 
tesque section,  of  his  public,  upon  the  "  aesthetes," 
the  pseudo-artists,  the  mountebanks,  and  as  I  am 
told,  upon  a  few  women.  His  artistic  conception  of 
the  life  of  humanity  is  the  enormous  exaggeration 
of  a  half-truth,  or  even  a  quarter-truth.  Humanity 
must  produce  beauty ;  it  must  live  in  sane  strength 
and  in  beauty  as  much  as  it  can.  But  to  sacrifice 
itself,  or  to  allow  itself  to  be  sacrificed  for  the  sake 
of  a  beautiful  vision  of  art,  that  is  another  thing. 
Humanity  must  sacrifice  itself  to  humanity  alone. 

Do  not  let  us  leave  Nietzsche,  after  having  so 
much  fought  him,  without  acknowledging  that  his 
was  a  very  high  intelligence  served  by  an  admirable 
imagination.     Had  he  possessed  but  talent  I  would 


CONCLUSION  303 

Still  hold  him  as  a  man  who  rendered  services  to 
mankind.  Talent  even  unwholesome  is  always  to 
my  mind  more  beneficial  than  unwholesome.  It  be- 
comes beneficial  in  the  long  run,  when  the  venom 
has  volatized  and  the  perfume  remains.  But  even 
in  himself,  if  we  consider  nothing  but  his  ideas,  I 
found  some  use  in  Nietzsche. 

As  I  do  not  know  what  believer  said :  "  There 
must  be  heretics  "  I  would  feel  inclined  to  say  that 
there  should  be  sophists.  That  wakes  one  up, 
shakes  one  out  of  slumber;  it  whips  one  up  like  an 
angry  north  wind,  it  brings  movement  and  a  "  sharp 
and  joyful  breeze "  into  the  intellectual  life.  It 
gives  tone.  There  should  be  sophists.  By  reaction 
they  end  in  restoring  the  commonplaces,  and  in  im- 
parting to  them  a  new  luster  and  a  new  freshness. 
I  am  more  of  a  moralist  since  I  read  Nietzsche,  the 
immoralist,  and  since  I  found  out  that  Nietzsche, 
after  having  furiously  repulsed  every  kind  of  mo- 
rality, was  unwittingly  led  to  establishing  one  and 
even  two,  which  leads  me  to  believe  that  there  are  a 
hundred  of  them  which,  superposed  to  each  other, 
connecting  themselves  together  and  establishing  an 
hierarchy  among  themselves,  end  in  establishing 
one. 

Then  it  is  very  good,  it  is  of  prime  importance, 
that  every  now  and  then,  that  often,  somebody 
should  make  a  complete,  absolute,  integral  and  radi- 
cal revision  of  human  opinions,  of  human  beliefs, 
and  of  the  most  imposing  and  the  most  deep-rooted 
of  them  all.  It  is  very  good  that  often  some  one 
should  say,  as  Nietzsche  did:     "To  accept  a  belief 


304  ON    READING    NIETZSCHE 

simply  because  it  is  customary  to  accept  it  —  is  that 
not  to  evince  bad  faith,  is  it  not  cowardly  arid  lazy  ? 
Do  we  want  bad  faith,  laziness  and  cowardice  to  be 
the  prime  conditions  of  morality?"  Nietzsche  has 
precisely  and  especially  rendered  the  world  the  im- 
mense service  of  being  honest  and  brave,  of  bowing 
before  no  prejudice,  nor  even  before  any  venerable 
doctrine,  of  never  balking  before  any  idea  of  his, 
however  scandalous  it  might  appear,  of  querying 
anew  everything  dauntlessly  like  Descartes,  and 
even  more  so,  in  my  opinion,  more  thoroughly  than 
Descartes  himself,  of  having  had  an  imperturbable 
intellectual  courage,  which  he  carried  sometimes  to 
bragging ;  and  that  is  the  fault  of  that  quality  which 
we  must  always  be  expecting  and  with  which  we 
should  always  be  prepared  to  put  up. 

The  gist  of  Nietzsche  is  that  we  must  every  one 
of  us,  make  our  own  morality,  our  own  aesthetics, 
our  own  politics,  our  own  science,  and  that  educa- 
tion is  very  good  provided  it  gives  us  the  strength  to 
get  rid  of  it  in  order  to  make  one  for  ourselves. 

The  gist  of  Nietzsche  is  that  there  is  no  good 
truth  but  that  which  we  have  discovered  ourselves, 
nor  any  good  rule  of  life  but  that  which  honestly 
and  with  an  effort  we  have  created  for  ourselves. 

The  gist  of  Nietzsche  is  this :  "  There  are  no 
educators.  A  thinker  should  never  speak  but  of 
self-education.  The  education  of  youth  directed  by 
others  is  either  an  experience  attempted  upon  some- 
thing unknown  and  unknowable  (very  exagger- 
ated), or  a  levelling  out  of  principle  to  make  the 
new  human  being,  no  matter  which,  conform  to  the 


CONCLUSION  305 

ruling  habits  and  customs.  In  both  cases  it  is  some- 
thing unworthy  of  the  thinker,  it  is  the  work  of 
the  parents  and  the  pedagogues  whom  an  honest 
and  daring  man  called  our  natural  enemies  (Stend- 
hal). When  one  has  been  brought  up  for  a  long 
time  according  to  the  opinions  of  the  world  one 
always  ends  in  discovering  one's  self.  Then  begins 
the  task  of  the  thinker. 

The  gist  of  Nietzsche  is  that  man  has  the  right  to 
form  personal  ideas  because  only  the  personal  ideas 
have  the  consistency  which  we  need  to  support  our- 
selves, and  because  one  can  lean  strongly  and  firmly 
upon  no  one  but  one's  self. 

He  is  right  in  this  and  the  lesson  he  teaches  is 
good  and  even  his  example  is  good.  For  that  rea- 
son—  besides  the  often  exquisite  and  sometimes 
perverse  pleasure  that  one  enjoys  in  reading  hiiri  — 
one  derives  also  a  strange  profit  from  the  temporary 
acquaintance  of  this  "  Don  Juan  of  Knowledge  " 
and  this  adventurer  of  the  mind. 


APPENDIX 

THE   WORKS   OF   FRIEDRICH    NIETZSCHE 

Beyond  Good  and  Evil 

The  Birth  of  Tragedy 

The  Case  of  Wagner 

The  Dawn  of  Day 

The  Genealogy  of  Morals 

Human,  All-Too-Human 

The  Joyful  Wisdom 

On  the  Future  of  our  Educational 

Institutions 
Thoughts  Out  of  Season 
Thus  Spake  Zarathustra 
The  Will  to  Potver 
Early  Greek  Philosophy 
Ecce  Homo 
The  Tzvilight  of  the  Idols 


THE  END 


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